


The Flooding Dark, The Evening Strange

by herongale



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-04-10
Updated: 2005-04-09
Packaged: 2017-10-06 00:19:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 75,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herongale/pseuds/herongale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Germany, before the war.  Edward Elric travels to Köln in search of a way home.   While there, the former Fullmetal Alchemist is reunited with an old enemy, and together they consider the costs of trying to return to a world which does not need them, and which may never want them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.  
Niels Bohr

 

There was no such thing as a wound that healed, good as new.

Westphalia on the Rhine was not a safe place for former state alchemists in that desperate time just before the second great war. That which had once been the Holy Roman Empire was now gripped in poverty and the kind of suffering that gave birth to stern ideologies, not unlike Ishibal, or Lior. Edward Elric no longer carried the title Fullmetal, but after having spent over two years studying the sciences of this strange world, now he found himself travelling from Rome to Köln by train, pursuing a different and yet disturbingly familiar goal.

Sighing as he leaned against the sideboard, Edward watched as the countryside of Germany scrolled by. All of that research into the nature of rockets had failed to pan out. No matter where he went or which new theories he pursued, it had become clear that the problem of designing a rocket capable of breaking the bounds of gravity was a puzzle that would take many more years, and far much more manpower, then Edward would be able to command. Critically more important, however, was the fact that the entire pursuit was fundamentally flawed. Even if he could find the power to reach the end of the universe, Alphonse would not be there. He would never be there.

Deep in the theories of physics Edward had discovered an elemental truth. There was not just one universe. There were many, and they were in fact infinite. The gate that bound this world called Earth to his own was not a passage that encompassed distances. No-- the only thing it connected together were possibilities.

That discovery had sent Edward into a lurid depression. He had been in Paris at the time, and in the end he escaped suicide only by the fortunate intervention of his father, who came from Munich specifically to retrieve him, worried because the number of unanswered letters (and later, telegrams) had become too many to bear.

It had been a stern time in his life. Even thinking about it now, Edward shivered. It would be better to be dead then to have to endure such hopelessness ever again. It was his wish that Alphonse never would have to endure anything like it.

It was in Munich, floundering in overwhelming fears and living his life in an uncaring, unseeing haze, that he snapped. And it was then, and only then, that his father had finally confided in Edward, revealing to him the existence of a different path. Alchemy, disguised as magic, had not yet died in this world of technology and physical laws. That was a day when Edward came very close to killing his own father.

It had not been easy for Hohenheim to convince him that the reason for his earlier reluctance had been because it was a dark and dangerous path, not significantly different from the pursuit of the Philosopher's Stone, or Resurrection Alchemy.

The dangers themselves were different, of course, but very real. Alchemy on earth depended on the principle of equivalent exchange, but in this world _all_ alchemy drew its power from the soul of the practitioner. Every act had the potential of obliterating that soul altogether. Edward eventually forgave his father, but he never forgot that the man had allowed him to walk deep in the pathway of despair before giving him this hope.

But, wasn't that always his father's way?

Facing forward to observe the landscape coming, Edward finally saw two black towers rising in the distance, signaling that the city of Köln was close. Edward could not help but find it ironic that his biggest hope now lived in the church. The religions of this world were different from the religions of his own, but in Edward's estimation they carried not a whit more truth. For him, the only value of the church was in its position as repository of arcane learning, as a hoarder of forbidden facts. Edward had spent a great deal of time in Rome, exploring a city more ancient and byzantine then any he had known in his own world, tracking down secrets right under the nose of the formidable Catholic church.

He had not been able to penetrate very deep into the Vatican; it soon became clear that even though the texts he needed were stored wherever the church kept their secret libraries, he would never be able to get to them. Everything was simply too closely guarded, and without power Edward could not take the information by force. He did learn some things, however. Ultimately he discovered a clue which directed him to where he was at this very moment, on a train to Kölner Dom.

Germany was a Protestant country, the ultimate Protestant country. The power of the Catholic church was weak here, and in its most important Cathedral it contained a shrine to three Christian saints: the tombs of Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, the three wise men reputed to have given gifts to the Christ child. Although Edward did not believe a single word of the Christian gospels, he did believe in the clues which taught him that the three gold sarcophagi contained not only the bones of three unknown men, but also the magical texts that he needed.

It was all now just a matter of getting there.

Edward looked down at his left hand, fingers fretting fitfully as his whole body sang with impatience. He had never been able to really get used to his left hand's unnatural dominance. It didn't want the power it had, and became oddly clumsy at times, even now. Personifying his body parts was a habit he'd picked up from Alphonse... watching his brother deal with such an extreme body/soul disconnect had caused him to pick up some sympathetic distance. Edward stroked his metal arm with the dancing fingers, trying to calm his nerves.

Soon the train was passing cottages and then larger buildings, and abruptly the countryside was left behind. Once he arrived Edward would have to find an apartment. His funds were rather limited as he depended almost solely on a pension provided by his father... his confounding, shady father. Where the man got the money, it was impossible to guess, but all Edward knew was that he could reliably expect a wire at the beginning of each month, enough to provide for modest housing, food, and a few additional necessities. Fortunately, his father always seemed to be two steps ahead of the devaluation of the Mark, probably by using certain back-channels of knowledge that were probably quasi-criminal if not outright illegal. Edward never asked.

The Weimar Republic was in trouble. Everyone knew this, even Edward, who had only the most cursory knowledge of Europe's recent history. Although democracy was still technically the ruler of the day, so was poverty, and in this poverty Edward sensed a simmering desperation and blind fear that was sure to break out in some recklessly bad policy. It would be too bad, tragic, if Germany were to fall victim to the sorts of excesses he'd seen back at home, but Edward would not find it surprising. The gaunt faces that stared out at him as his train rolled to halt at the station bore witness to this.

Clutching his slim leather briefcase close, Edward debarked from the train. He no longer wore the rich red cloak he preferred, choosing instead to blend in by wearing drab browns and whites without the slightest element of distinction. In his pocket he held a list of names, people that Hohenheim's contacts deemed to be reliable, and these would be the people he would seek out when looking for a place to stay. Edward was not yet sure how long he'd be in the city. It might be a few days, but most likely it would be several months. In either case he would require a landlord who would charge fair prices, provide adequately tidy accommodations, and ask absolutely no questions.

Before he walked one hundred yards, Edward found himself staring directly at the façade of the cathedral, Kölner Dom. It was predictably massive, but less predictably, it was stained in soot and looked rather sorry because of it. A past glory, now faded. However, the heavy overdose of filigree (Edward supposed that it qualified as "gothic") made the entire impression awe-inspiring, awesome. Somehow even the soot added to the gravitas.

He had to see it. Because it was so close, Edward had to surveil. It was a struggle to suppress the sneaky pose that his nature almost demanded he adopt. Someone, probably Winry, had once told him that he revealed too much with his face, and ever since then he'd tried to reign that in at critical moments, but it was never easy. Lifting his spine, holding himself tall, Edward sauntered in through the main atrium, his gait only a little bit loping and predatory.

Inside, the cathedral was amazing. Vaults over ten stories high dwarfed everything, an effect Edward approved of because it kind of leveled the playing field, making everyone look diminished. Perhaps a thousand people could be fit in there, maybe more, but at this time Edward spied only a couple dozen, most praying quietly in the pews or kneeling silently in front of the terraced candle racks in the various side chapels. It took him longer then he thought it would to find the shrine to the Wise Men, but when he did he was pleased to see that it was cordoned off with nothing more strong then a velvet rope. In a completely hypocritical display of piety, Edward bent to kneel in the front pew before the shrine.

There would be two main problems in breaking into the tombs, neither trivial. The first was that they existed in a completely open space. Although any stranger could approach quite close, it seemed that there was always a priest or two wandering around, looking generally solicitous but clearly able to raise some kind of alarm if they witnessed any sort of sacrilegious break-in. Edward would have to find out if there was ever a safe time to approach unobserved. The second problem was that the shrine itself was an ornate gold mini-cathedral which was covered over in many intricate carvings. It was not easy to figure out how to break into: perhaps it was an entirely welded piece. If it were that, Edward would have to just give up right then, but in what little he'd been able to figure out about the Catholic church, that really didn't seem to be in its style. That thing contained bones, and even if they were not the bones of the three (probably mythical) kings, they must be real human bones, the kind which can be shown to doubters or auditors of the church.

Edward cracked his knuckles, and then sighed. Figuring out the solution to these problems would be frustrating and time consuming. But the key things he needed to know were simply not the kinds of things he'd find in any old book, and he had accepted that already, a long time ago.

Edward stood up, but instead of leaving he decided to walk around some more. Something in the peaceful stillness appealed to him strongly, and he didn't need to share in the religious faith that the building represented to find it beautiful. In fact, it was a testament to the strength of men, not gods, that such places existed. All throughout Europe he had seen many wonderful things, and his favourites were the massive architectural triumphs of various ages. Edward had read that this cathedral alone had taken over a decade to build. He approved of that kind of devotion. In a way he was _living_ that kind of devotion. Building a stable life where he could live together in peace with his brother... that seemed as worthy a task as any other, although such work would be unlikely to leave behind any meaningful trace.

Edward remembered the dead cicada, from the time of Izumi's test. That, too, had left behind no direct proof of its existence, but in the mere act of dying it nourished many small lives. That dead cicada was a friend, a comrade. It represented who he thought himself to be, what he thought his end would be like, and such a thought gave him a kind of odd comfort.

One of the chapels captured his interest when he saw that it had a statue of the Virgin Mary, the goddess of the Catholic Church. A few people were praying before it, and Edward moved to join them, wanting to sit quietly in the last row and observe it more closely. Whenever he saw depictions of the Virgin he was reminded of his own mother, how she had been before he had attempted to resurrect her dead soul into a false body. It also made him think about Wrath's hands around Izumi's neck, and about Rose caring so tenderly for the child born out of her rape. Not least it reminded him of Gracia, Hughes' wife, and helping her through her labor on the day of his own birth, not long before Nina was transformed into a chimera. Such thoughts were sad, but he was drawn to them, just as he was drawn to look on the serene face of this goddess he did not believe in.

In one of the middle rows, a young girl was holding a rosary, her murmured Hail Marys just faintly audible, while across from her sat an elderly couple, both respectfully upright and attentive, although not appearing particularly prayerful. In front of all of them a large man with short white hair was praying with his head bowed deeply, kneeling in the foremost rows and wearing a severe black woolen cloak. Edward regarded them all and pondered their relationship with the goddess, wondering what it might be like to share their faith. Perhaps it was comforting. He hoped, for their sake, it was.

Edward lingered. The day was still somewhat new, and he had plenty of time to take care of the mundane but necessary prospect of exploring the city. He hated to admit it, but he was homesick. Always, always, he missed Alphonse, but sometimes those feelings swelled and threatened to overwhelm him. There was no question that the very act of living in this world was to be in exile. Perhaps that was part of the price necessary to secure Alphonse a human life of his own, but the fact was that it still galled. If he could even get some glimpse, some assurance that the transmutation had worked, that was all he really needed.

Sometimes he hated himself for being so weak, but not this time. It seemed right to mourn, because mourning was nothing but longing applied in extreme circumstance. Eventually the girl finished her prayers, and when she walked out there was a look of lightness and relief in her face. Edward smiled at her, smiled even though he knew that it made him look more sad, more pitiful, because of that hateful habit of revealing everything with some flicker of muscle twinges that was entirely outside of his control. She smiled back, possessing the enviable clarity of the young as she pitied him.

Soon after the couple followed suit, and Edward noticed that their clothes were very shabby and thin. His immediate impulse was to give them something, anything, but he knew that would be disrespectful to their dignity. He was just too young and young-looking for them to be able to accept such a gesture from him without loosing face in front of their goddess.

Oh, how Edward missed Risenbourg. In a place where everyone knew everyone else, charity was so easy.

Now it was just him and the man in the black coat. Edward dared moving up a few rows, taking a seat in the row just behind the other man so that he could look more closely at the statue. It was so stunningly lovely. Alphonse would surely like to see it, so it was up to him to remember it well so that he could describe it to him. Edward held close many such memories against the time that he hoped he would see his brother again. Not all brothers were as close as he and Al, but Edward didn't much care for whatever stigma or oddness this longing attached to him. His life was too peculiar for his affections to be normal, that's all there was to it.

The other man was saying his own prayers in a quiet but deep undertone, and something about the accent niggled at Edward uncomfortably. Among his various skills, Edward had always been very adept at languages. This used to be useful only in regards to reading and research, but in this world it was a matter of survival. He knew by now several languages... Latin, Spanish, English, and French he possessed all to some rough degree, and he was beginning to piece together a scholar's understanding of Hebrew. German was quite similar to his own language, so in that language he had actual proficiency, but for over a dozen separate tongues he was at least able to sort through the words and determine where the speaker was from, even if he could not always understand content. Whatever the priest was speaking, it was not German nor any Romance language, but something that tugged at Edward's memory irritatingly.

Naturally, this caused Edward's attention to shift from goddess to man. Despite the white hair he did not look old, and his skin was a dark olive color that was certainly not reflective of the prevailing Aryan standard. At first Edward thought he might be a Jew, but that made no sense, because what Jew would pray to a Christian god? He could see very little of the man's profile because of his position, but what he did see impressed him with a feeling of strength. There was a strong neck and rough-cut bones of the hands and face. There was something... something...

Scar. The man reminded him uncannily of Scar. As far as he could tell, this man had no marks on his face, and an involuntary glance at his right wrist was unrevealing of any tattoos. So he couldn't be Scar himself. But the resemblance was striking and hit him like a blow. Memories he forgot he had raged to the surface, an admixture of extreme lonesomeness for home as well as sickening recollection of all the horrible things that he wanted to suppress. What Scar had done had been both unforgivable and completely understandable, and Edward remembered clearly the fact that it had been Scar who had made it possible for Alphonse to survive Kimbly's transmutation, and that his own life was perhaps owed to what had happened in Lior. He still found it very confusing and unsettling, and just thinking about it made his head hurt.

Scar had died, it was undeniable. This was not, could not be, Scar. It could be the man's doppelganger, of course... but that shouldn't give him these kind of shivers... should it?

Edward remembered searching for him in the rubble of Lior and finding Alphonse instead, and when the surprise of that all had passed he had found himself on the run from the military. His initial shock and even sadness over the death of Scar had been something completely suppressed. Like the cicada, Scar had become a comrade of sorts, a reminder of his own frailties and weaknesses. It was true, Scar had done what Edward could not. He created the Philosopher's Stone, and against all odds had found the one way in which doing so was not an utter atrocity but rather a symbol of some arcane justice. Scar had been the kind to believe in a smiting god, and in acting as her agent he did mete out the kind of judgment that perhaps the world's flow demanded.

Shaking only a little, Edward stood up to leave. Distracted at last by Edward's various agitated movements, the man looked back. At first there was only curiosity in that glance, but quickly the man widened his eyes in surprise.

"Edward Elric?"

The face that looked at him had no scar. The eyes that regarded him were not blood-red but brown. And yet. And yet.

"Scar?" Edward's voice was a harsh whisper, and his shaking increased.

"I thought that Ishbala might lead you here," the other man said, using an accent and words that were only vaguely reminiscent of German, settling back in his seat and regarding Edward calmly.

 

Reeling, Edward stepped backwards involuntarily, flattening his hands and bending his arms up at the elbows. How many times had he fought with this man? First, it was Scar trying to kill Edward, folding Fullmetal into his revenge quest against all State Alchemists. Later it had been Edward who pursued Scar, intent on killing him before he could complete the Philosopher's Stone. Because of Edward's skill and Scar's gift, they had been fairly well matched in battle. However, without alchemy Edward had little chance to defeat Scar now.

Still, he would not run away.

"You don't really want to fight me, do you... Fullmetal Alchemist?"

Edward took a moment to really look at the man in front of him. Despite superficial changes Scar looked no different, but the calm of pose was mirrored in a similar repose of face, which seemed strikingly unlike the Scar of old. Scar leaned back, but only to stretch his arm behind the pew, using it so that he could more comfortably look at Edward without getting up. He looked like a man greeting a neighbor who he hadn't seen in a few weeks, not like a holy fanatic meeting an old rival from who he happened to have been separated... by death and a gate severing universes.

This was insane. What was the proper protocol? Edward suppressed an incredulous bark of laughter, and the tension In his body didn't lessen one bit. How could he be comfortable around what he did not, patently could not, understand?

The man, Scar, waited quite a time before saying anything. His face was almost frighteningly patient.

This, in a nutshell, was exactly why Edward did not believe in god, any god. Had there ever been a coincidence in his life writ more heavily in cruel irony? Edward had been thinking about home, missing it fiercely, wanting his brother back. Almost any reminder of home would have been welcomed with delirious happiness... Almost. If Edward did end up believing in a God, it would be this Ishbala woman, and he would curse her as a trickster god no more faithful then that Norse myth, Loki. Edward had mourned Scar's death, distantly, but hadn't it also been a relief?

Never having to deal with the man again, that was the kind of blessing he could get behind.

"Let's go." Scar stood up finally, never taking his eyes off Edward's face. There was no way to guess what he was reading in the transparent cinema of emotions that Edward was treating him to.

"What?" Edward replied, stupidly. His mind was working at a furious pace, processing the possibilities for how this could be, at the same time that his soul was protesting bitterly the painfulness of having to deal with one remnant of home that he really wanted to forget. It was hard to attend to actual particulars.

"Come," Scar gestured, and when Edward did not move he stepped into Edward's pew and gently palmed the smaller boy's elbow, nudging him to move. "Let's go outside."

Somehow Scar ushered him out of the cathedral, Edward moving numbly a few steps in front of the other man. Other then the one brief moment of contact Scar had made no further attempt to touch him, and walked a few steps behind and to the side... exactly where Edward could see him if he wanted, and ignore him if he didn't.

In front of the cathedral was a large empty plaza. It looked like the kind of place that welcomed visitors, but the very few people walking along it hurried past. Prejudice against Catholics was no longer officially sanctioned, but it didn't do to loudly proclaim any affiliation with the object of Martin Luther's enmity. Blindly Edward wandered towards the river, and silently, Scar followed.

It was not far, but slowly, slowly Edward calmed. No duel seemed imminent. More importantly, he had come up with a sort of theory for how Scar could be here. Despite protests, Scar had been a kind of alchemist, and the final transmutation of his life carried more scope then any Edward had ever performed, even if it had been done using cruder style and less studied understanding.

Perhaps Scar too had seen the Gate.

Having a theory would make it easier for Edward to forgive Scar for not being Alphonse. Eventually they reached a kind of park, some cultivated grass along the edge of the Rhine. It was very early in the spring, so the grass was still a bit wet and muddy, but there would be no problems so long as Edward continued to stand. Edward stopped far short of the water's edge, and when he stopped, Scar did too.

"How long have you been here?" Edward asked, finally speaking.

Scar looked at him oddly. "Since I died, of course."

Edward paused, then turned to face Scar, wishing that he'd grown more since the last time they'd met. "I meant, time. How long?"

Scar scrunched up his face, looking at the morning sun with a frown. "Well, if you think about it that way... About three years, I suppose."

Under natural light Scar's eyes had a berry-colored tinge, betraying a hint of their former brilliance. "What have you been doing?" Edward reflected on his own three years of frenetic activity, traveling from place to place and subjecting himself to the rigors of a quest, and wondered if that was a very fair question. He opened his mouth to ask something different, but Scar answered before he could get a chance to find something else to say.

"The same as you saw. Praying, mostly."

How could it be possible to exist in this world by just praying? Scar's coat was simply cut but solid, the white shirt and black pants underneath quite clean. His shoes were black and neatly polished. This was not the dress of a raging fanatic. Edward must have telegraphed his confusion with unusual clarity, because Scar nodded and added, "I am a Brother." The upper-case spelling was audible. "In a Christian sect."

"That's okay?" Edward was very surprised.

"You mean with Ishbala?" Scar showed his first faint smile. "I still serve her, of course. My devotions to the Virgin are testament to this." It was so strange to see this man without his marked face. "I believe the Mary exists under Her dominion, so I am content."

There were so many things Edward wanted to know. How had he been able to transmute Alphonse into the Philosopher's Stone? Why did he do it in the first place? A sort of pang hit him as he realized that if he had known that the Fuhrer had been homunculus prior to arriving in Lior, it might have been possible to convince Scar that the man's real enemy was not the military, but the shadowy soulless forces behind the scenes. Scar had been zealous, but not irrational... surely he would have seen the wisdom in this course. If only Edward had known. All those lives could have been spared. Maybe, maybe Scar would have even helped him in his fight against the homunculi.

Alphonse had been right. Going after Scar before settling things with the homunculi had been a reckless course.

"Let me look at you," Edward demanded. Scar dipped his gaze toward Edward, the smile wiped clean away as the Ishibalite seemed to recall who his audience was. Putting his hands on his hips, Edward inventoried the other man's features, comparing what he saw with what he recalled. The eyes were new. The scar was gone. Otherwise, was anything else different? Edward bit his lip and frowned. He couldn't tell. "Maybe I shouldn't call you Scar anymore," he said finally.

Scar touched his forehead and shook his head. "For you, I don't have any other name. That will have to do."

"Hmm." Edward crossed his arms, tapping his good fingers against his metal arm. If Scar had come over into this world with all of his memories intact, why did his body not have the marks from his life back at home?

"It's okay." Scar shrugged off his wool coat and handed it to Edward, who took it gingerly before folding it over his crossed arms. His white shirt had buttons at the wrist, and Scar undid these, rolling up the right sleeve deliberately. When he was done, his look at Edward burned challenge. "See?"

The tattoos were gone. Edward pretended to blink, disguising the fact that he'd already noticed this earlier. Anything to indulge the man.

"This arm itself is a scar," the other man explained.

What did that mean? It was a perfectly virgin arm. Surprise tainted Edward's artless face. It looked almost painfully new, and Edward had a moment of stark envy, quickly suppressed. "How?" he blurted.

"You think I understand alchemy?" Scar asked, his tone flattening. "I have no idea." He reached for his coat, which Edward handed to him. "I don't even know if it's because of alchemy," he said in a less hostile tone, seeming to reconcile something in his own head.

"What do you mean?"

"Well... I don't know. After I died..." Scar looked away. "Did I create the Philosopher's Stone?"

Of course. How could Scar measure his success without being present to see it? "He... Alphonse... lived." Just saying his brother's name out loud took some effort. Thanks seemed both monstrous and inadequate, so Edward took a cue from Scar and looked off in the distance, turning around to take in the skyline of the city without really attending to it.

"I see," Scar said quietly. "That's good."

Was it good? Edward kicked at the grass, cutting up a rivet of brown and green. From a personal perspective, yes, of course it was. But of all of those people Scar had sacrificed, surely some had not deserved it. Not all of them had been rapists and murderers. Except. Except... by excusing those others of culpability for the military's many egregious sins, was it not possible that Edward was trying to find a way to excuse himself? By choosing to lend his power to the military, hadn't Edward put his own selfish goals ahead of any kind of sense of justice? Did he not deserve to die along with the others, paying both for his privilege, and his pride?

Izumi had forbidden him from becoming a dog of the military, had warned him of the transgression in giving validity to any sort of oppressive regime. The militia that Scar killed had been deployed with the expressed intention of doing in Lior exactly that which had been done in Ishibal. If they had not entered the city, the complete Philosopher's Stone could never have been triggered. If Scar hadn't arranged for the evacuation of the citizens of Lior, wasn't it entirely possible that Edward would have joined the older man in halting the military's actions? Or would he have heeded the call to stand by, watching as even more innocents died in a conflict that had been started in his own name?

Standing by. Halting... Killing. Semantics.

"She said..." Scar began, and then cut himself off abruptly.

Edward dug his boot more viciously into the grass. He said nothing.

"She said, _you_ could do it. Turn him into something different." A guarded pause. "It was the best I could do."

The best he could do? It was more then Edward had ever been able to do. Unless... unless his last transmutation, the one returning Alphonse to earth, had been successful. Somehow Scar had found the insight to be able to create the Philosopher's Stone without having it present in his own body. An impressive feat, although deeply exasperating. "How?"

"My arm... my brother's arm..."

Suddenly the story clicked, and Edward understood. Scar had not suddenly learned the last step of alchemy. No. He must have given his arm, whole, to Alphonse. The man had always acted entirely out of instinct anyway, and that would never be enough to give him the knowledge to be able to do an actual transmutation. The Philosopher's Stone had been the one thing, the only thing, that Scar had been able to create, and he could do that only because the driving force in that creation had been the second step of alchemy: destruction. Edward shook a little, digesting this. It was strange to think that both he and this man, Scar, had given an arm to his brother. "Lust told you that?"

Perhaps the most mundane detail of all, Lust helping Scar. "Yes."

In the late morning light the city looked bright, reflecting the truest colors that the sun was capable of evoking. The density of people near the water was quite low, but further on in there was a heartbreaking hum of activity, the small noises that people always made as they lived their lives. Despite his best efforts, Edward had never felt like he'd been more then an observer in cities like this. "What was it like?" Edward asked quietly.

"Does it matter?" Scar's voice was particularly distant, although faintly laced with savageness. "It hurt, I guess."

What does one say to that? How much did Edward really know about Scar, anyway? This was a man he'd met many times, and although he knew the exact outline of the man's life, how much did he really understand of his motives? 'It hurt.' 'That's good.' '_I guess_.' Did the man intend to live out his life in utter monosyllabic stoicism? Edward shook his head in frustration. No, he knew that was an unfair thought the moment it ascended into consciousness. Just because he had never been privileged to observe Scar in a more emotional state didn't mean the man never had any deep thoughts, nor never any heavy words. In fact, the clipped words and odd bursts of feeling from Scar fell into a familiar cadence of restraint that felt all too familiar to Edward. "I see," the small and former alchemist responded with a sigh. He did see.

Scar stepped back a bit so that he could catch Edward's backwards-facing glance. Surprisingly, his expression mirrored some of Edward's frustrations. "'What it was like' is not something that matters," he explained. "That's all I meant."

"Yeah?" Edward looked up slowly. "But it did hurt, right?"

"What I meant... Is your brother... is Alphonse... did he make it?" There was concern in Scar's normally guarded face. "That's what I had hoped for. The rest is... probably... irrelevant."

More then his own pain, this was what really mattered? Edward drew in a deep breath. He hadn't quite realized just how much this Ishibalite had come to care for his brother, and seeing it now hit him like a blow. How had Edward come to deserve such a brother, one who could bring even a holy murderer to pity? Tears unbidden came to his eyes, and angrily Edward scrubbed them away. "Yes," he pitched harshly. "After what you did, yes."

"Ah." Scar put on his coat and then slid an unfashionable, outdated pocket watch out of his pants. Whatever he saw there caused him to nod, and he gestured towards the city. "I have time," he said. Edward continued to shake quietly, furious at himself. Scar reached out and touched Edward on the top of his head with his right hand. "Have lunch with me, Fullmetal Alchemist." His touch was almost familial. "I know a place."

"Maybe." Edward squeezed his eyes shut. He would compose himself, or die trying. "Wait, never mind. Yes. Let's." He agreed through gritted teeth and suppressed tears. Scar's hand covered his entire head, and Edward remembered the last time the man had touched him like this, offering benediction through the gift of death. This was different. The hand that touched him now was more hesitant, less heavy as it pressed him down against the earth. Edward felt oddly comforted, even soothed. After a moment he reached up to swat Scar's arm away, feeling his cheeks go warm. "And don't call me that."

Opening his eyes, he looked to see again that shadow of a smile, and this time the smile was for him. "As you wish, _der Herr_ Alchemist."


	2. Chapter 2

An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered.  
G.K. Chesterton

 

"Why is sauerbraten so damn good?"

"I don't know, but it's evident you favour it." Scar eyed the piles of emptied plates next to Edward's beer, speaking now in proper German. The older man took only tea.

"You should try some!" Edward was not drunk, not even near, but he had topped off at least one mug. He waved a forkful of marinated beef in Scar's general direction. "I promise you, the taste is revolutionary."

"I told you. I don't eat meat." This was said in the patient but almost-had-it tones of a seasoned vegetarian.

"Yes. But I scorn your reasons." Edward shrugged, and popped the sweet and spicy bite into his mouth. "No merciful god would ever forbid something so delicious."

"So you say."

"SO DAMN GOOD!" Edward was getting a little loud. Scar shook his head and kicked Edward under the table as some of the other patrons looked their way curiously.

They had talked for quite a long time, over an hour. It was an oddly patched together series of revelations, as Edward did the best he could to bring Scar up to date on all the things that had happened after he had, as he put it, died. Edward wanted to ask how the man could think of himself as dead when he obviously was living some kind of life right here, but after a few philosophical starts he discovered the topic was mysteriously verboten.

Edward kept some facts back, of course. He did not reveal that Sloth had been his dead mother, nor that Envy had been some kind of half-brother. There was almost no talk about the things Edward found most important to who he was, Winry and the dead officer Hughes and his father, Hohenheim, being just a few of those tetchy topics. The one thing he could not keep in check was how much he missed his brother, and ultimately the conversation had looped around to Alphonse many, many times. To this Scar had no objection, and in fact seemed to egg Edward on, wanting to hear about all sorts of trivial Alphonse factoids as if they confirmed some pet theory of his. Edward tried, once, to figure out what had made Scar so protective towards his brother, asking what it had been that caused Scar that one time to tell Alphonse that he was in fact human. Scar had dropped into a glare so icy and menacing that Edward decided it, too, was a topic best avoided.

Maybe it had something to do with the fraternity of little brothers, everywhere. In any case, Edward decided to ignore it.

At some point he discovered that Scar had become a Jesuit and was in the novice stage of formation, approximately a year before taking his vows. Very weird and striking that Scar had joined one of the most urbane and erudite of religious orders... Edward never would have guessed that such a life held any attractions for a man of Scar's uncompromisingly pagan approach to the rituals of faith.

Some things were just a lot easier to handle after a bit of alcohol. Edward found himself able to accept Scar's presence here in this world and even hazarded a few positive feelings about the whole thing. Scar seemed to be attached to his new-found contemplative life and would not be any kind of bar to any of Edward's goals. He didn't even seem that curious. When Edward made up a little story about how he needed to stay in Köln in order to study Hegel and Max Planck, Scar didn't even seem to blink at the preposterousness of connecting those two men in any sort of serious investigation, let along wonder why Edward hadn't taken these queries to Berlin. Scar just did not seem to care.

Without rivalry, it would be... nice... to have someone familiar to talk to. Edward hadn't realized how much he'd come to resent eating alone.

One of the restaurant maids slipped the cheque to Scar after getting some kind of signal from him that the meal was over (never mind that Edward had not yet finished his seventh plate of god-defying deliciousness). This caused Edward to arch his very blonde eyebrows in presumptive outrage. He was almost twenty-one now. How did the entire female populace of Germany get off presuming that Scar would be the one to pay? Did he look like that much of a pea-sized midget in comparison? Well, probably, but still. It was an outrage. As soon as the girl stepped away Edward swiped the cheque out from Scar's fingers, only barely suppressing a pint-sized growl.

"I think I can afford tea," he said, attempting a dry tone that probably could fool no one.

Scar gave him the oddest look, but did not make any move to retrieve the bill. "You intend to supplant my hospitality with your own?"

"Well... yes." Edward made a face. "I mean, no. That's completely stupid. Just because you invited me doesn't mean you should have to pay for my banquet." He reached forward to tap Scar's glass with then tines of his fork so that it made a satisfying little tinkling noise. "Also, you didn't eat anything. I know what fair is."

"And I know what fair isn't," Scar responded, reaching forward to take the bill and moving so quickly that Edward didn't have any chance to respond. "There's a right way and a wrong way to do these kinds of things." Scar's glance was complicated, weighty. "Trust me. If I expected you to pay, I wouldn't have insulted you by eating nothing."

Edward looked at his plates, evidence of his gluttony causing him to blush scarlet. "I don't want you to have to pay for all this," he muttered. "Not _everything_. It's... embarrassing."

"I enjoyed watching you eat," Scar said, with no change in his expression, except perhaps in becoming even more unreadable. "Very artistic."

"You can do that for free," Edward said, scrunching up his shoulders and huddling at his seat. "Ack. Now I'm going to feel bad."

"Do you always reserve your hesitation for when it becomes clear that the cost is not just shared by you?" Scar looked away, this time wearing a look of judgmental disdain. "If it is your nature to consume food so recklessly, don't apologize for it. But don't pretend that spending your own money somehow puts the weight of the consumption only on you. There is always a cost for others... even if you don't see it."

Edward stiffened. Not only was it surreal for him to be schooled in the core principle of alchemy by an avowed hater of the practice, it was extremely unexpected. He stared at Scar, taking deliberate large breaths through his nostrils as he tried to figure out how to answer without lashing out. His mind worked quickly and he loosened his jaw only when he felt that the result of his many mental calculations was correct. "If there is a wrong way, there's also a right way," Edward said at last, guardedly. "But _a_ right way is not necessarily _the_ right way." He took another breath. "I never thought you really intended to pay for all that. Honestly."

Scar's expression softened. "I want to."

"You can if you want." Edward nodded, at first with hesitation, but then decisively. "And... thanks."

 

As soon as lunch was over Scar left to return to his monastery, and Edward started in on his previously intended task: finding a place to stay. He didn't intend to be picky, but experience had taught him to weigh his options before making a choice. The sun hung heavily in the western sky; despite his residual tipsiness, Edward hunkered down for a long, grueling afternoon of apartment hunting.

The nice thing was that the city was so fresh, vivid even, the smell of spring clear on the air and the gorgeousness of the weather causing even the grimmest passer-by to seem a bit relaxed. The streets were narrow and cobbled, and people with bicycles passed the pedestrians in an orderly, courteous fashion. Edward splashed some water on the back of his neck from one of the fountains he passed by. It seemed to Edward that every person either had cornsilk or sun-kissed warm brown hair, coloring that was so like his own and his brother's that sometimes Edward startled, thinking he saw someone else that he knew from back home. It was all an illusion, of course. Just because he had met Scar didn't mean that there was any power in coincidence, and Edward didn't really anticipate any more unexpected meetings.

The hours passed quickly but almost from the start Edward's feet were dragging. Everything was so similar. The prices quoted, the situations... nothing distinctively outrageous, but nothing particularly amazing stuck out with him. Eventually he turned down a street towards the last name mentioned on his list, and Edward had made up his mind that unless it was totally horrible or expensive, he would take it.

The first thing Edward noticed were the potted flowers on the porch, red and yellow tulips lining the steps. It was a three story building, and on the second floor patio Edward spied a kitten, which looked down at him impassively before disappearing off on an adventure. Edward knocked on the front door, smiling. This was not a bad place.

The landlady ushered him in, a pretty older woman in her forties with pink cheeks and blazing white streaks mixed in with her brightly blonde hair, braided in the back with a red ribbon. Ilse. She turned out to be something of a character, and after agreeing on arrangements that would allow Edward to stay for as long as he felt he needed, she treated him to tea and an intricate discussion of her various physical ills, including dyspepsia and recurrent bouts of the flu as well as new problems such as swollen ankles and periodic warm flushes that came for no reason. Following this she embarked on a lively discussion of her various travails in trying to find homes for all of the new kittens her cat, Fritzi, had recently given birth to. After talking to Scar Edward wasn't as annoyed with this oversharing as he might have been, but as soon as it was humanely possible he excused himself to check out the flat he would be renting.

Thank goodness for the fact that his place on the third floor had its own door and stairway on the side of the home. Edward climbed up the white-painted wood stairs and let himself in. It was airy and cheerful, decorated quite simply in light greens and yellows. A grey cat lounged on his pillow. Edward walked around and looked into everything carefully. No dust or grime to be seen anywhere. His landlady might be a pain, but she certainly could clean. After unpacking, Edward collapsed onto what was to be his new bed, causing the cat to move over with a displeased meow. He felt totally spent.

Where would he find an ally? Edward rested the back of his left forearm on his forehead, covering his eyes and sighing. Who could he find to help him get what he needed?

 

 

The keys to infiltration, in Edward's opinion, were subterfuge and encampment. In this case that meant pretending to be Catholic and visiting the cathedral daily. The Catholic church had only recently been allowed to re-open the doors of its churches, as a part of the settlement following the last war. This made the Lutherans nervous, even so, and being Catholic still happened to be something of a rebellious and dangerous thing to do. Edward ended up acquiring a rosary but he kept it carefully hidden in his pocket when he was walking around town.

Pretending to pray in church for hours on end was agonizing, but Edward endured, and soon got himself pegged as a regular by a few of the priests and religious lay people who visited the cathedral on a daily basis. Taking a cue from his experience with Scar, Edward decided to act as though he had an interest in taking up a priestly vocation (although he made sure to lard up his fake desire with enough doubts and hesitations to make credible his double life as a scientist). Unfortunately, though, although many people began smiling his way, few stopped to chat. Edward's carefully constructed lie went completely unused.

It was a lonely way to work.

For many days Edward did not see Scar again. This was not surprising; Scar had to keep to a schedule whereas Edward did not, and had taken on responsibilities which probably took up most of his days. It wasn't until two weeks later, in fact, when Edward broke down and decided to go to an actual Sunday mass (instead of the lower-key weekday masses that he favoured) that he next saw the former terrorist.

Sitting in a corner pew next to a large marble column near the back of the massive church, Edward wondered what possible good any of the predominantly German congregation got out of the entirely Latin mass. For most of them it was not a matter of saying words but of making the right noises, kneeling or standing on cue, and listening to chants which could have no relevance to their day-to-day lives.

The only things that made sense were the organ concertos that opened and closed mass; these, Edward loved.

Twitchy over the fruitlessness of his search to date, Edward pretended to watch the priest attentively but on the inside he was fuming. Every day that passed was one more day not knowing what had happened to Alphonse. Every day that passed was one more failure. It was as if he'd traveled across a vast unknown ocean in search of foreign gold, and on finding land had come to discover that he still had half of the world left to traverse. Reaching his destination would be meaningless if Edward could not find a way to unearth the secrets he needed to know. In bored frustration Edward scanned the faces of the people in the side pews, and it was then that he saw Scar.

The Ishibalite stood out among his group; although he sat with Jesuits and nuns and other religious persons under vows, he did not look like any of them. Scar was taller and his skin was much darker; from far away the difference in coloring was striking.

Actually seeing Scar again was like some kind of jolt to his limbic system, upsetting Edward's carefully controlled sense of reality. Considering the many marathon hours he was clocking at church (and considering Scar's inexorable devotion to practices of faith), perhaps it was inevitable that Edward would see Scar again, even in this relatively large city. But even an anticipated reunion could come as a surprise when it was unlooked-for. Scar was proof, solid proof, that Edward's own exile was real.

Edward did not take communion; the thought of participating in that particular ritual sickened him, particularly when he considered what it represented in terms of sacrifice. Eating the transmuted flesh of an incarnate god might appeal to some, but for someone who knew that transmutation could be real, the thought could only offer nausea. Sniffing, Edward quietly scorned the believers who filed forward. If they really believed in the mystery that they were celebrating, how could they accept it with such equanimity? Where was the transgressive fear? Such holiness seemed cheap. Edward noticed with some interest that Scar did not take communion either, and wondered why that was. Perhaps it was because he refused to take meat; of all of them, Scar would be one to believe in such a mystery wholesale.

Mass ended in routine solemnity, and as the high priest forsook his dais the parishioners began to mingle and disperse. Standing up quickly. Edward beelined Scar, tracking the other man as he began to walk with one of the priests towards the exit. He had to catch the man now, or it could be weeks until he saw him again. For right now Scar was his only lead, his only in. He'd have to see if Scar could introduce him to the right kind of person, but without letting Scar in on his plans (which the other man would probably find blasphemous). Catching up from behind, Scar seemed to be in pleasantly casual conversation with his companion, who appeared to be one of the Jesuit priests and probably was one of his superiors. Taking a deep breath, Edward reached out with his left hand and tugged on Scar's coat sleeve from behind.

"I'm sorry to bother you, um... Brother..." Edward trailed off, wishing he'd asked Scar what name he was going by in this world. Scar and the man with him both turned to look down at him... Scar favoring him with raised eyebrows and a scowl.

"You know this boy?" asked Scar's companion, the priest. The look on his face, at least, was kindly, as he queried Scar while examining Edward minutely.

"Slightly," Scar answered with a touch of sarcasm in his voice. "Father Ernesto, this is Edward Elric. An alch... a chemist."

Edward ignored Scar for the moment, examining the priest with interest. Ernesto? That was an Italian name. "Buon giorno," Edward said with a nod and a slight smile. He would make a stunning impression, or die trying.

"Parlate italiano?" The priest gave Scar a pleased grin, and then reached out to shake hands with Edward.

Edward tapped his metal arm with his left hand, illustrating that it was fake so that the priest would not perceive the insult when the handshake was not returned. "Poco, poco," he answered with a laugh. "I'm sorry, but my German is much better." Edward risked giving Scar a wicked grin of triumph, which the other man received with a very satisfying look of surprise.

The priest, Father Ernesto, gently took Edward's false hand and squeezed it between his own. "No matter. It is a pleasure to meet you, son." The look that Father Ernesto gave Scar was chiding. "I did not know that you knew any scientists. You should have told me. How are you acquainted?"

Scar pressed his lips together tightly, and Edward could not tell if the other man was amused, or furious. "He's... a family friend. Recently arrived in town, I believe." Scar looked down at Edward and evaluated him sternly. "Isn't that so?"

"Of course," Edward said earnestly. "I'm here on break from my studies."

"Chemist, eh?" The priest rubbed his chin thoughtfully, apparently oblivious to the sub-res tensions between Edward and Brother Scar. "Are you perhaps familiar with the recent work of Schrödinger?"

Oooh, perfect. Edward thanked his own non-gods for brainy Jesuits. Perhaps here was his in. "On Bohr... the wave equation?"

"Yes, that." The priest rubbed his hands together gleefully. "What did you think of it?"

"I want to see what Heisenberg says," Edward shrugged. "But I like it. It makes sense, it's elegant."

Scar followed this exchange by shifting his eyes from the priest to Edward, crossing his arms. Just as it appeared that Father Ernesto was going to ask Edward technical details about the paper, Scar broke in. "Can I help you with something, Edward Elric?"

Edward nodded, stifling regret. He wanted to continue with this discussion, but it was not worth alienating his one solid connection for the sake of cultivating a more tenuous one. "Father, can I borrow him for a bit? There's something I'd like to discuss in private, if you don't mind."

The priest nodded. "Of course, of course." He patted Scar on the shoulder, and Edward wondered whether it was cruel for him to enjoy the fact that the Ishibalite flinched under the familiar touch. Surely it was a bit petty. "I'll see you back at the monastery," he said with the air of one granting a favour. "Take your time. But, please don't forget to bring this boy by sometime." Father Ernesto smiled at Edward, a benign and inviting smile. "Intelligence is a gift from god, child. It seems you've been specially blessed. Treasure it."

"Um... thank you, Father," Edward murmured, suppressing an impulse to grit his teeth. "I'll make sure to visit while in town, if... my friend here doesn't mind." Scar was staring at him as if he were a creation surreal.

"Of course he doesn't mind," Father Ernesto waved off the concern airily, and then turned to leave with a little bow of his head. "Until we meet again, than."

Edward waved cheerfully as the other man left, and then turned to give Scar a matter-of-fact look, dropping the pretense of easy affability. "Where can we talk?" The church was taking a while to clear out, and right now it was possible that anything he'd say could be overheard.

"You're unreal," Scar shook his head in disbelief.

"Yeah, I know," Edward said, a bit softly, suddenly feeling sorry for disturbing Scar's routine. Who knew but that it was the only thing keeping the man from going off on self-righteous homicidal rages? Not for the first time Edward wished that he understood Scar a bit better... and not just because he could possibly find the man useful. What made this strange person tick? What was Scar's internal logic? Edward could only begin to guess.

After a moment of glaring at Edward, Scar's gaze went upwards. "Would you like to see the city from high?"

"You mean from the top of the cathedral?" Edward looked up and up, a glance that could not do anything but soar. "That's possible?"

"Yes. But there are many stairs. Are you up for a climb?"

Edward nodded absently, distracted. He didn't know that someone at Scar's level had that kind of access. After a moment Scar tugged on his automail, pulling at the forearm.

"Today?"

Tearing his gaze away from the shadows and mote-filled bars of colored light, Edward smiled at Scar. "Okay. Today."

 

Exactly as advertised, the climb was long and brutal. At first Edward took the stairs two at a time, practically running, but long before they reached the top he was proceeding at a virtual crawl, feeling drained of life and energy. Without Alphonse around to prod him on, Edward had lost touch with some of his more athletic skills. It did not help that Scar took the stairs effortlessly, from first to last with an even breathing pattern and unchanging pace that Edward could only envy.

The stairs opened out onto a small terrace on top of the cathedral, a sunny place shielded from high winds by the intricate buttresses framing the roof. Rarely had Edward been privileged to see any city from this kind of vantage point, so as soon as he stepped out into the light he gasped and sighed with pleasure. Why couldn't those dreary Catholics hold mass up here? Edward snorted to himself. That would make too much damn sense. As god's finest creation, shouldn't man glorify himself?

Apparently not. Edward entertained a brief fantasy about what kind of religious rituals that he'd mandate if he were in charge of faith practices for a whole swath of people, sitting down to catch his breath. There would be a lot more organ music and a lot less prattling on about the blood of lambs, that was for damn sure.

"So," Scar began, sitting down against the stone right next to Edward. "You wanted to talk to me?"

"Yes," Edward answered simply.

"Why?"

Edward gave Scar a probing look. Obviously the man was not going to let him get away with the pretense that he wanted to chat just because they came from the same world. That was not the kind of person Edward was, and maybe Scar knew it. "I want to know more about you," Edward said, deciding to state the truth although neglecting to offer his reasons.

"You know everything that is important already," Scar answered, not returning the look as he looked out over the far-away roofs of the city.

"I do?" Edward laughed a little, trying not to sound too cynical as it was not befitting his young age. "I don't know you at all."

"I find it difficult to believe that you'd care about anything like that," Scar said with the kind of dry cynicism that was _exactly_ befitting his age. "What do you want?"

Edward closed his eyes and rubbed his temples roughly with his thumbs, real and artificial alike. He wasn't willing to tell Scar about his plan to break into the shrine, not yet and possibly not ever. "I can't tell you," Edward answered, his non-answer being the sort of honesty that Scar deserved, even if it was a sort of unpleasant truth. "Can you accept that?"

"Mystery, eh?" Scar turned to look at Edward then, and actually smiled. "For now, yes."

"You're so strange," Edward said, returning the smile with exhausted appreciation. "I can't think of anyone else who'd let me get away with that kind of answer."

Scar shrugged. "We're not family. We're not friends. We're not even colleagues. I don't expect you to give me the considerations you would give those."

Edward recoiled a little, as if stung. It was true, and Edward didn't necessarily want things to be any different, but still... saying things so baldly was brutal. He'd asked for it, though. There would be no possibility of cultivating a real acquaintance by asking Scar to open up while refusing to give anything of his self. "Mm... okay." Edward stretched out his legs, considering this situation to be a sort of social puzzle that required tactful genius. Normally this was not the former alchemist's forte, but he would try. "So?"

"Hmm. Well, you know about my brother. You know about his arm. You know how I died. What more is there?"

"Was it all for revenge?"

Scar looked at Edward for a long silent moment, and Edward waited patiently as his intentions were weighed, returning Scar's gaze steadily. He would not back down; it was a fundamental question. "I don't believe in revenge," Scar said at last.

"I can't believe you killed that many people out of sense of pique," Edward replied quietly, a little shocked that Scar could say that with a straight face. "But I guess I just don't get how you could justify what you did, if it wasn't for revenge."

"There are many things that people with your kind of privileges are incapable of understanding," Scar answered, just as quietly, but with a faintly deadly and dangerous air. Obviously Edward was pressing a little hard.

"Privileges?" Edward barked out with a choking laugh, stung a bit in turn. How dare he? "I'm a cripple, an exile, and completely alone. I don't think I see any 'privileges.'"

Scar reached forward and grabbed Edward's automail leg by the knee, twisting to glare at Edward with a kind of angry resentment. "A cripple with functional limbs that make you stronger then you might otherwise be. An exile with a brother who loves you and who is probably working at this moment on ways to return you to life. A person alone, but with the distant backing of a powerful military and a prosperous... and living... people. Yes, your life is completely bereft of advantages." Scar's sneer was punishing and full of repressed rage. "You know about what happened in Ishibal, and Lior. And yet you think that my actions are without justification? I think you don't understand as much as you think you do." Scar took a deep breath and shook himself, backing off as he released his hold on Edward's body. "All life is precious, not just the lives that are precious to you."

"If you think that, how could you kill?" Edward bit off a despairing sigh. It just didn't make sense. "What you did didn't bring back one life. Not one."

"Of course not. But I hoped to save some." Scar knocked his own back against the wall, slumping back suddenly. "That's not revenge." Scar touched his forehead, the place where his skin used to wear a cross of white. "You alchemists do not know the kind of power you have."

"What do you mean?"

"You obsess over the past, and therefore it holds irresistible power over you. But the past is not as important as what is to come." Scar closed his eyes. "You have... had... the power to create a better future. But instead you live only through your regrets."

"I could say the same for you." Edward ran a finger through the hair tied at the back of his neck. "Are you a hypocrite?" Well, there went any pretense of tact. But once he started in like this, Edward found it difficult to repress himself. Edward valued the truth too much, and when he fought about matters of truth he always aimed to win.

"Yes," Scar whispered, and when Edward turned to look at the other man he was surprised to see pain lining his face as he closed his eyes tightly.

Oh. Edward felt his momentum skid to a thunderous halt. How did you argue with someone who refused to pretend that he was perfect? It was difficult to maintain contempt against that kind of honesty.

"Edward Elric... were you responsible for creating a homunculus, like my brother?"

Edward sat up with electrifying quickness. He guessed that the clues were obvious, and obviously Scar had gained the right to ask such a personal question because of the kind of probing that Edward was subjecting him to, but still. That was the last thing he expected to hear, especially as a question from this man. Far from wondering how Scar knew, Edward instead wondered where the man was going with this. "Yes," he whispered.

"Who was it?"

"My mother."

"Ah." Scar turned to face Edward, arranging himself in a cross-legged stance with his hands resting open in his lap. "You and Alphonse did that?"

"...Yes."

"You must have loved her very much, then," Scar said with a solemn nod. "I'm very sorry." The other man took a deep breath and bent his legs upward so that he could lean forward, resting his forearms on his knees. "Sometimes I underestimate the past, because I try so hard to forget my own. But I know that it affects everyone." In Scar's blood-brown eyes there was a certain indefinable sadness. "There is no justification for what I did," he whispered. "None. So don't try to find any. Just know that... I did what I felt that I had to do. I am willing to pay the price."

Edward was reminded of the first time that he'd ever seen the ocean. Despite dreaming of it his whole life, it had looked nothing like what he expected it to be. It was more vast and more terrible, more lonely and perfect, churning with fractal chaos. This glimpse of Scar's motives was a little like that... illuminating nothing, except that now he knew that he was looking truth in the face instead of merely imagining it from his own limited perspective. "What was your mother like?" Edward asked with a different kind of curiosity, his voice hushed with his own reverent sorrows.

"I don't know." Scar looked down at the ground, and for the first time ever Edward saw clear shame taint the other man's face. "She died before I was born."

Edward paled. "Before?"

"Yes. She never knew me. And I never knew her. My brother raised me."

Edward fell silent. He was afraid to ask after a father. In fact, he didn't need to... the implied answer was clear enough. But to be born of a mother already dead? The only kind of children like that had to be cut from their mother's womb before they died themselves. It was horrifying to contemplate. Unlike Edward, Scar was truly and fatally motherless. Perhaps that explained much.

"My mother would have liked you, I think," Edward said softly, after gathering his thoughts together into some kind of coherence. "She died before I was old enough to know her as a person, but I think you are the kind of person she would have enjoyed talking to." And it was true. In Scar's various torments and tangled principles there was a very interesting individual, someone not unlike... well, not unlike his own damned father.

"Hmm," Scar said, evaluating Edward with an expression he'd never seen before, one of actual respect and even gratitude, the shame fading slowly. "You are like your brother. That sounds like something he would say."

Edward felt a pang of loneliness squeeze his heart. It was true, but he wouldn't have known it unless Scar had pointed it out. That was exactly the sort of thing Alphonse would say, kind and appropriate and not at all in Edward's native style. Memories unbidden flooded his mind, and Edward closed his eyes to cling to them, knowing that they would pass quickly. "I miss him," Edward confessed. "I miss him so much."

"I will pray to Ishibala for him," Scar said quietly. "I will pray for him daily, if you want." His voice sounded a bit helpless, with a return of that ephemeral undercurrent of shame.

"That's a lot of praying," Edward said with a shaky smile, struggling to find his composure. "I don't believe in prayer, though."

"I know you don't," Scar said. "But I can do this for you anyway. Sometimes it... helps. I imagine that it helps, anyway."

Who would it help? Alphonse? Edward found that unlikely, so grossly unlikely that he was about to refute it with reflexive rejection, when he remembered that Scar was a motherless child and looked at him more closely. Scar was not looking through him but at him, and it occurred to him that the person Scar wanted to help was... well, him. "Who prays for you?" Edward asked, adopting a gentleness that was not false even if it was unfamiliar.

"There is no one left who can," Scar answered while looking off into the distance.

Suddenly Edward felt and understood his privilege, and his heart ached in unaccustomed sympathy. Scar was a walking wound, open and bleeding, and even with a restored body he was still without any of the comforts accorded to most of humanity. It must have been a terribly lonely way to live. "I think there is more to vengeance then mere hatred," Edward said in his most thoughtful voice, trying to give Scar the best and straightest words within his power, even though it meant reaching into unexamined philosophical depths that he didn't like to probe too closely. "Sometimes I think revenge is what happens when we lose all hope." Edward coughed a little. Maybe that was saying too much. "That's... that's what creates the Philosopher's Stone, I think. Even more then the lives that comprise it."

"Hopelessness?"

"Yes. Hopelessness."

"You are probably right, Edward Elric." Scar looked chastened. "Hopelessness... despair... is a weakness. One which I am afraid to say afflicts me often." Scar made his right hand into a fist, and looked down at it somberly. "I do not think I was wrong to save your brother," Scar said. "But I know it was wrong for me to kill all those men to do it. It would have been better if I had stayed with just killing State Alchemists."

Edward found himself nodding, even though he knew that he was agreeing to his own death sentence in some kind of weird cosmic way. "If you had killed me before I went to Lior the first time, many lives would have been saved," Edward said. From a non-selfish perspective, this was the undeniable truth.

"And if I killed you now?" Scar said, looking up at Edward suddenly. "How many lives would be spared then?"

What a shockingly direct question. "None. I hope."

"See? That is the problem with what I did. I want to believe that taking the lives of people in the military would save lives, but... I don't know. I will never know what those people would have done, if left to live their lives without my interference." Scar stood up. "And now I will never know."

No, he wouldn't. Edward stood up in turn, looking out over the city on Sabbath. "Let's be friends." He held out his automail arm, not feeling the need to hide from this man who he really was.

"Friends?" Scar looked at the hand offered, appearing confused. "Why?"

"Because I can't pray for you." Edward reached forward and gripped Scar's hand before the other man could withdraw. "That's why."


	3. Chapter 3

How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.  
Niels Bohr

 

"Tell me, Inscrutable Kitten, what next?"

Sitting at the table in Ilse's kitchen, Edward rested his chin on his automail forearm, laid flat, a woeful air as he allowed a tiny black and white kitten to stalk the fingers of his good hand. The room reeked of cabbage and the remnants of a an ill- advised sausage adventure. Ilse was puttering around, cleaning up dishes with the air of one to whom This Whole Event shall never be mentioned again. At least there was beer.

"Are you giving up already?" Ilse asked with prickly sensitivity as she scrubbed a burnt pot. Although she did not know anything of Edward's quest, she knew that he was searching for something and on that limited bit of data she considered herself an accomplice and advisor.

"No," Edward said glumly. "But I think I've hit a dead end. I need to regroup."

"Eat a cookie, you'll feel better."

"With beer?"

"Trust me, it works miracles." Ilse turned around with suds on her hands, wiping them off on her apron so that she could shake a finger at Edward. "And what do you mean, 'regroup?' That sounds suspiciously like nonsense."

"I had… a bad day, I guess you'd say."

Ilse snorted, returning to her labors. "In what way?"

"Well… I went to church." Edward got up, taking the kitten by the scruff of its outraged neck as he went over to the counter where the cookie jar was, fishing out a chunk of shortbread. He'd have to just try this beer and cookies thing.

"Ah, I can see the trauma already."

That was so non-hilarious that Edward didn't reply. Instead he took a large bite out of the shortbread and chased it with a swig of Ilse's finest. "Urg…"

"Give it a minute to settle. That's a folk remedy, not high cuisine."

"Why can't you peddle in herbs the way other, um, women do?" Edward sighed as the kitten jumped off the counter and went to round up reinforcements in the form of a half dozen brothers and sisters. "I bet you made up this remedy just now to punish me."

"Punish you for what?" Ilse's tone became suddenly deadly.

"For maligning… the church."

"There's nothing wrong with maligning the church, particularly if it is a Catholic church." Like that, the thunderclouds lifted. "What were you doing there anyway?"

Looking for ways to break into an ancient national treasure. "Looking down on the city from God's point of view."

"You climbed to the top of the cathedral?" Ilse sounded impressed, despite herself. "How did you manage that?"

"I have a… friend. He's studying to be a Jesuit. He showed me."

"Ah, that makes sense. Even in Germany the Jesuits have quite a bit of power."

"He's just a brother, though. A kind of monk in training." Edward flinched as he felt tiny little claws cut through his shirt as two of the kittens vied for supremacy over his hair.

"You think that even the lowest Jesuit doesn't have power? All your friend is incapable of doing is serving communion, as far as I know. That doesn't mean he can't scheme." Ilse looked over her shoulder. "I think you could use some scheming help, quite frankly. I don't want you to start moping around here all day."

Scar, scheme? "He's not that kind of person, I'm afraid."

"So what? He can still get you into places, right? He got you up to the top of the cathedral, and that's not easy to do."

Edward blinked, moving his tied hair to the front of his chest in vain hopes that it might deter his tormentors. Scar had access… _of course_. "You think he could get me into the library?" Not at all what Edward wanted, but asking about it was a safe way to probe.

"The church library? Bah. That's simple."

"Can he check books out?"

"Probably not," Ilse said with a considered pause. "I'm not really the best person to ask, but it seems to me that the Catholics are not casual with their documents, even the public ones."

"Hmm," Edward pretended to sound disappointed. "The church closes the doors so early. It would take me months to read what they've got, especially if I have to wait for my friend to be around to let me in." Maybe the cookie/beer combo was working… Edward was beginning to feel almost chipper.

"I bet he could sneak you the keys… if he weren't so scrupulous. Oh well. Maybe what you want could be gained another way?"

"Maybe," Edward said with the most put-on sigh he could muster. On the inside he was elated. Scar would be the one to help him…

… assuming he could get the man to agree, that was.

 

 

Scar's room at the monastery was on the second floor, with a small window facing the city, just over one of several back entrances. The window was too small for Scar to climb out, but not so hard for Edward, climbing in. After last prayers Edward tumbled in cautiously, after waiting to make sure he would not be caught in the act. He needed those documents, no matter what.

"Edward Elric!"

In the process of getting into his night clothes, Scar was barely dressed. In fact he was naked, although that changed in the whip of a moment as crumbles of fabric were hastily arranged to cover his groin. He looked absolutely outraged.

"What are you doing!"

Edward knew how to win this game. After dusting himself off and showing himself to the floor, sitting cross-legged, he looked up with raised eyebrows and an oddly pursed smile. "No, that's not it. What are _you_ doing? You're naked."

The outraged simmered and soon became an expression of curdled disgust. Dropping his clothes to the floor in defiant calmness, Scar turned his back on Ed and began to calmly sift through his drawers, looking for underpants. His whole posture asserted "avert your eyes," and after a minute of withering silence he spoke up, voice acid. "Just one moment."

"You're circumcised," Edward commented.

Viciously Scar pulled on a pair of underpants, threatening to do severe violence to his own crotch with the quick jerky way he pulled them on.

"_I'm_ not," Edward added helpfully. Edward uncrossed his legs, stretching them in the air in front of him while lifting his arms high with a yawn. Inside his shoes his toes were curled. It was that kind of stretch. "Neither is Al."

"What," Scar began, his words clipped caustically, "were you doing, looking at your brother's private parts like that?"

Laughter. "Er, private parts?"

Scar turned around, abandoning the rest of his night-clothes project. "I will not say unclean words." He was one finger-point away from shaking his fist balefully. "You know what I mean."

"The last time I saw Al's _penis_, I was eleven." Edward's voice had the slightest edge, as it did whenever he mentioned having been that age. "It's not abnormal for brothers. We used to swim naked in a lake near our house, in the summer."

"Sounds like fun," Scar said sarcastically, but with a slightly different and more appeased tone. Childhood memories were obviously one of his sacred things, and underneath the sarcastic tone was a real note of interest. "Why are you here?"

"I need your help." Edward preferred the direct and honest approach, which was his own kind of nakedness. It didn't take him long to explain about his research into this world's alchemy, and how all of his studies thus far had led him to Köln. Scar stepped over Edward's legs and sat down on his floor-height mattress, facing the smaller boy with an expression of almost courteous attention, which for him was a blank unreadable stare and stone silence. Most people would find it unnerving, but Edward continued on. The plan itself was simple; Scar would take advantage of his position to ask for time for private prayer in the cathedral at night. This would garner him a key, which Edward would borrow, and once inside he would break into the appropriate chapel and open the tombs. Describing the details was a matter of minutes; what took longer was Ed's need to describe, in painstakingly logical detail, the justification for such an action. Of course, Edward's justifications were not moral, but ethical, based not on any faith but rather on his own personal code.

Scar, unsurprisingly, had no questions. "I will think on it," he said finally.

Edward nodded. Of course. He expected that he'd have to beguile Scar into this, and that would likely take some time. Looking around the room and its spare furnishings, Edward made a show of changing the subject. "Do you like it here?"

"I have no complaints." Scar leaned forward, resting his elbows on his bent knees and cradling his chin with his knuckles. "Do you?"

This made Edward blink, but soon he was back to being the smiling golden boy. Whatever flash of emotion he had was expertly suppressed. It seemed that Scar could still surprise him. "I don't hate it."

"But you still want to go home."

Slowly, Edward stood up. This time there was no stretch, but instead he betrayed the kind of heaviness of movement not often seen in boys his age. "Yes."

It was some time before Scar moved at all. Instead, his eyes tracked to follow Ed's movements without actually inclining his head.

Edward looked down and waited for what he thought was the obvious response. It did not immediately occur to him that there would be none, but when it did a certain frustration dawned on his face. He was struggling against himself, trying to find the right words, but also trying to hold them in. He had not lived long enough to be able to win such a battle. Eventually, he blurted, "Don't you?"

"I don't care. Maybe."

Edward hadn't made it as far as he had by being stupid, or sentimental. At least, that's what he told himself. After all, hadn't he only allowed himself the luxury of missing his world because he had promises to keep? His expression lifted, losing childlike confusion and replacing it with his own sort of knowingness. "There are still people in Ishibal. Your people."

"I paid my debt to my people." With this, Scar stood up, stepping to stand a bit too close to Edward, purposefully looming.

"What about your debt to the people you killed?" Edward truly hated being forced to look up, so he didn't. His eyes remained fixed on Scar's chest, hard gold as he crossed his arms defiantly.

"Can you really ask that?" Scar sounded incredulous. Roughly, he grabbed Edward by the chin and forced him to meet his gaze. "I am paying my debt now."

Surprise, then outrage, then a complicated mix of less classifiable feelings painted Edward's face. This was not what he expected. Not at all. Where had his upper hand gone? How was it that Scar was able to tap into his own guilt so effectively? Of all the doubts that plagued Edward's mind, one was always foremost: _Do I deserve it?_

_Do I deserve to go home?_

Something about Edward's response caused Scar to soften, lessening the pressure applied to the bottom of Edward's chin, although he did not remove his finger. It was maddening, how the man could be so modest about his body and so casual about personal space. Edward could now look down if he wanted to. "How does this.." Edward gestured, encompassing somehow not just the room but the entire monastery with a sweeping movement of his heavy steel arm. "How does all this help?"

"Penance." Scar slowly stepped back, towards the window Edward used to smuggle himself in. His finger dropped away from Edward's face, leaving the faint memory of warmth. "Is this what friendship means to you?"

"No"

"Maybe you should go."

"Can I.. can I come back?"

Scar began to shake his head in reflexive negation, then stopped, and shrugged. Again with the maybe.

After Edward dropped to the ground and found the road that would return him to his apartment, he rubbed his chin and sighed. Nothing had been settled, which he had expected. However, things hadn't quite gone his way either. Which he had not.

 

 

Three days later Edward decided to risk a return visit, this time under the revealing light of day. The monastery was not in the city proper but rather three miles out, deep in the surrounding farmlands. The landscape reminded him much of Risenburgh, gently rolling hills with sprawling squared off parcels of land.

Summer was coming; Edward could feel it in the moisture of the spring morning, a kind of heat that wanted to burn, curling around his body like a promise. Every time that Edward went on a longish walk he wondered why it was something he didn't do more frequently. The unpaved dust of the road encouraged lazy indolence, the thistles and bright flowering weeds attended to by a fair number of bees and other insects, of both flying and creeping varieties. Buzzing silence reigned. Birds with calls that were different enough from the calls that he remembered at home kept Edward's sense of being in a foreign land intact, but the scene was more familiar than different. This was the kind of day that Alphonse had best liked for playing hooky when they both had been young, begging off studying transmutation arrays despite Edward's serious objections.

Edward kicked at a loose rock and sent it skittering ahead of him on a tangential path. Every day pressed on him more heavily than the last, never letting him forget the urgency with which he had to work. Assuming that he'd resurrected Alphonse properly, now it was a race between his own abilities and those of his brother. Scar had been right; Edward was surer than sure that if Alphonse was alive he was working on a way to get Edward back, and if Edward didn't act quickly then Alphonse most certainly would.

Edward was willing to lose both of his remaining limbs, or a piece of his very soul, to make sure that it was he and not Alphonse that would pay the price of reunion.

Soon enough the wall of the monastery came into view, a building that Edward had already scoped out quite thoroughly and which stood at the crest of a broad hill as a place that was now as familiar as any in this new world. It was not ancient but it was old, and sprawling. A compound made of crumbling stone. Edward wondered a little how it was that Scar ended up here, how he had managed to be taken in and accepted despite his complete lack of familiarity with the world.

Leaving the road to take the stranding pathway meandering up the hill, Edward sighed, breathing heavily. Above him the sky was gorgeously blue, and the clouds were billowy and white. This served only to brighten the day's mood. Edward hoped that Alphonse still felt temptation on days like this.

The stone wall enclosing the monastery was only about four feet high… tall enough to define the boundary without really obscuring the view. However, because of the angle of approach Edward didn't really see beyond it until he was right there, taking the circling path around to the opposite side where the entrance was. There was the back exit leading to the gardens, and Edward smiled as he looked at the acres of recently tilled ground, barren of any vegetation. The smell of turned earth was very strong. Edward wondered what fragile crop that the monks had planned… obviously they had waited until all chance of frost had passed. A few of the brothers were out and appeared to be sowing seed.

It didn't take long for Edward to recognize one of them as Scar. The man was not wearing his typical westernized attire, instead dressed in a simple white robe over which he'd draped a dark red length of cloth, twisted around his body in a fashion clearly Ishibalite, clearly foreign. The rest of the monks wore robes but with only a simple belt at the waist. Edward raised his eyebrows; he wasn't aware that Scar would be willing to dress in so openly an alien fashion, nor that the Jesuits would allow it.

Edward wondered if it would be possible for him to scale the wall while only using one arm; he shouldn't do anything outside of that parameter. He wanted to sit on the edge, but setting for himself this limit Edward found after a few strained attempts that the wall was too high. Edward shrugged and then moved on, continuing on his original plan to present at the gate. Hopefully the hospitality that Father Ernesto had offered was still something he could take advantage of… his stomach was gurgling hungrily.

An enclave of all men… not such a strange concept to someone habituated by military life, where for every Riza Hawkeye there were at least fifty Jean Havocs. Edward was welcomed warmly by the man at the gate after mentioning the name of Father Ernesto, and ushered into a small chapel just inside the main building where he was asked to wait.

Here there was a portrait of the Madonna, a particularly fine one of a style not familiar to Edward. Madonna or Ishbala… different names for the same non-existent goddess.

She was still very beautiful.

"Aha…. there you are."

Snapping out of reverie with all the practiced skill of someone used to being interrupted in his thoughts, Edward turned around and shot a smile towards the sound of the familiar voice. "Ciao, Father," he said.

The man, Father Ernesto, stood at the chapel doorway with a pleased, welcoming grin plastered over his face. "Chemist… it is good to see you again."

Edward twitched his right shoulder, a purposeful gesture that helped him to remember to lock his arm into uselessness, and to keep his language strictly German. By now the transition from private to public face was practically automatic, triggered by the slightest intrusion. "Thank you. You too, sir."

"You are here to see Brother Timothy, I presume?"

Timothy… Timothy… Edward blinked in thought over the name, trying to recall whether there were any famous Jesuit scientists under that name… but was struck soon with a cold shock of realization. Timothy must be Scar's religious name. Offering a smile that he was afraid must look a little sickly, Edward swallowed and then answered. "Yes, of course." The pause was minute, the slip-up small… but Edward castigated himself silently nonetheless.

"He's working the fields right now. Shall I call for him?" Father Ernesto's return smile was cultivated, and almost impossible to read.

"It's not urgent."

"Ah." Dropping the smile in favour of a more thoughtful look, the Jesuit priest circled around from the door to take a seat next to Edward. "May I ask you a question?"

"Certainly." Adopting an attitude of urbane insouciance, Edward sat back, looking the other man in the eyes as calmly as possible, purposefully forgetting his previous blunder. No matter what question the man threw at him, he felt more than equal to the challenge.

"What is the nature of your association with Brother Timothy?"

Odd… "We're family friends." Didn't Scar mention that the first time he'd been introduced to the man?

"You grew up knowing him, then?"

Edward shrugged. "Well, yeah." If he considered that he'd first met Scar sometime soon after he got his State Alchemist's watch, there were ways that could actually be construed as true. "He was more of a friend of my brother, though." Edward liked using facts as a way to obscure truth; it was so much better than lying.

"I see," Father Ernesto said, nodding. "What do you think of him?"

Interesting… Edward guessed that Scar's oddness had a way of being obvious; although he'd been around Scar enough to know that the man was able to muster a passable command of German, the former Ishibalite attacked the language with a faint, unplaceable accent, and clearly retained stubborn loyalty to some of the customs and practices of his own world. Maybe Father Ernesto didn't quite trust Brother Scar. Barely blinking, with the lazy look of a predator basking in sunlight, Edward raised his eyebrows. "I think he's great," Edward said, with a dry tone that he hoped made it difficult to decipher if he was being sarcastic, or totally serious. "How about you?"

"He strikes me as a faithful man." Father Ernesto spread his hands out, palms up in a 'what can you do?' gesture. "But that's not what I was driving at. I want to know what he was like… before." The man allowed his question to trail off, looking off into the distance and gifting him with the kind of meaningful pause that religious sorts were so good at. He was probably killer in a confessional.

Annoying. But this was his chance, if he wanted to take it, to set his sights higher. Father Ernesto, with his educated logic and political manner, was probably a surer target for manipulation than Mr. Maybe. Tapping the index finger of his left hand against his lips, Edward considered the question. "You should ask him that," Edward said quietly, finally.

Not perturbed, Father Ernesto clapped a hand on Edward's shoulder. "I have. And now I'm asking you."

Alphonse was his goal, his one and only priority. How much was he willing to use Scar to that end?

_Is this what friendship means to you?_

The problem was that Scar took him seriously, took his offer of friendship at face value. To betray that for Alphonse's sake was not something that Alphonse would like, and separated from his brother, Edward felt more keenly than ever the weight of Alphonse's ethical code, the implicit judgment he'd receive if he did something too questionable in order to advance his own ends. Sighing, Edward looked down at his hands. He just couldn't find a way to get around it: Alphonse wouldn't like it if he sold Scar out, or used him in any way that might end up hurting him. "Don't you trust him?"

Instead of answering. Father Ernesto stood up and walked towards the portrait of Mary, turning around to face Edward from the front of the chapel. "You handle this kind of thing very well, I see."

"I just don't see the point in trying to see if there's anything I can say that might perjure him," Edward shrugged. "I mean, how are you going to know that _I'm_ not lying?"

"My, my," Father Ernesto said. "You're even more interesting than you look." The man was smiling again.

Something about this exchange seemed off to Edward; there was something going on here that he just could not parse. "Yeah, well, thanks," Edward said, brushing aside the compliment with barely disguised annoyance. "You're prying," he said bluntly. "Why?"

"I wanted to see what you'd do," Father Ernesto said, and damn it all if the man wasn't _chuckling_. "I admit, I'm surprised."

"Surprised." Edward replied, tasting the word. His tone was a bit short. The man had wanted… what? "You were testing me?"

"Yes," Father Ernesto said. "Didn't you think I might find it a bit odd that you'd ask for me, instead of your friend?" Although the man's voice was merry, his gaze was searching and serious. It reminded him a bit of Maes Hughes. "I wanted to see if you'd be willing to compromise your loyalty in order to get whatever it is you want." Tilting his head to the side, Father Ernesto dropped his smile and adopted a less mannered look. "Do you find that unfair?"

How could he find it anything but? "You had invited me to discuss science," Edward said, levelly. "I'm here for that."

"Actually, I had invited the man you know of as Scar to bring you," Father Ernesto replied, just as levelly. "Do you think I would have forgotten?"

"Scar…" Edward gaped, blinking in surprise. Not Timothy, but _Scar_. "How do you…?"

"I am told you do not believe in the Bible," Father Ernesto cut in, not sounding at all shocked at Edward's surprise. "Perhaps you are not then familiar with the book of Timothy?"

"I read it, once," Edward said, warily. He had never felt so displaced; this conversation had taken a severe turn for the surreal. "I'll read anything… once."

"Well, let's see if you recall this." Father Ernesto raised a finger in lecture style. " For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good. Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God." The look of the priest was subtle. "What do you think of that?"

"I think it's a pretty bleak way to look at humanity," Edward said, reaching across with his left hand to clutch at his automail arm. He had to remember not to move it. "I hope you don't expect me to be surprised if that's how… Scar… sees the world." Or himself. It was everything he could do, to keep himself from curling his automail fingers into a fist. "He's told you about me?"

"Yes," Father Ernesto said, walking from his position next to the Mary-portrait to stand near the window in the corner, looking out over the fields.

Silence that stretched into minutes. Edward closed his eyes, thinking. When he spoke, his question was simple. "When?"

"The day after you broke into his room," Father Ernesto said, tone implying that he fully understood the reason Edward asked. "The day after you asked him your favour."

He could not… He would not… Edward bit his lip. There were some things which would be absolutely unforgivable. Was it possible that Scar had betrayed his whole agenda? Yes. But it was not safe to jump to conclusions. For the sake of Alphonse, and the sacrifices he wanted to save his brother from, he would not make any assumptions, nor speak recklessly at the risk of ruining everything. He would not be so careless. "I see."

"You really are grown beyond your years," Father Ernesto said, a note of real admiration in his voice, a sound of respect he hadn't heard from the man before. "Do you know why your friend chose the name Timothy?"

For that cynical verse, probably. "Because he hates himself?" Edward could not keep the faint touch of bitterness from his voice, and his eyes. It was killing him, not knowing if his entire mission here in Köln would need to be scraped.

"No, child," Father Ernesto said, the tone of his voice gentle. Priestly. Edward could tell; there was a real difference between the way the man was talking to him now, and how he'd talked to him before. Oh, why hadn't he seen it then?

It sounded like the man wanted him to say more, but Edward was at a total loss. "I give up." Opening his eyes, Edward shook his head. "I admit it; I do not understand religious people." He felt his face fall into a familiar look of resolve. "What do you know?"

"I know you have asked Brother Timothy for a favour. He has not told me what it is, however."

"Did he tell you what I am aiming for, at least?"

"No," Ernesto shrugged, then raised an eyebrow. "You might not have my trust, yet. But you appear to have his. He says that this is your secret and will not share it."

"How long have you known that he's not.. from here?"

"Since the day we took him in." Father Ernesto turned back to looking out the window. "Timothy was a follower of Paul, who was one of the apostles and martyrs of the early church. He was of mixed background… a bastard if you will. The letters that Paul wrote to Timothy were full of warning and strong words, but it was in the middle of the last chapter of his last book that your friend found a verse that had meaning for him, and it was from that verse that he decided on the name. Would you like to know it?"

"Sure."

" For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand." Father Ernesto coughed a little, then continued. "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course. I have kept the faith."

"It is good, I suppose, that he is so confident of his salvation," Edward said, not bothering to cover up the trace of relief in his voice. Scar had not betrayed him. He could forgive the man any amount of illogical silliness, so long as he did not do that. "It does make me wonder how it is possible that he can be so conflicted, if that's how he sees himself."

"Ah, but he doesn't." The priest sighed. "That is simply how he wants to be. He wants more than justice. He wants to be justified."

Edward looked up, the bitterness fading from his eyes. "Don't we all?"

"Indeed we do." Father Ernesto favoured Edward with a respectful look, quite different from the way he had evaluated him the first time they met, even though then he had clearly been impressed by Edward's mental powers. "I will tell your Scar… our Brother Timothy… that he can help you if he wishes." He took Edward's automail hand. "He is seriously considering it." A smile, urbane and courteous. "Stay for dinner. We have much to discuss regarding Herr Schrödinger."

 

It turned out to be a long and exhausting day. Edward had a lingering lunch with Father Ernesto debating laws of refraction and reflection, the genius of Archimedes, and whether Fermat was a fool for assigning the principle of shortest light time. Edward thought it needlessly anthropomorphic to assign light any motives at all… light did not want to be fast, per se… it didn't _care_ so long as it radiated according to its nature. Father Ernesto, however, was of the opinion that perhaps speed was indeed fundamental to the nature of light, and therefore the principle was not so stupid. In the end both men agreed that Schrödinger's math seemed to work, either way.

The idea of energy radiating in waves of curved light had many attractions to Edward. If he were not committed to returning to Alphonse, Edward would have rushed himself to Berlin just so he could see in person the marvelous ability to photograph particles as invented by those mysterious far-off Americans.

Late in the afternoon Scar returned with the others from his outdoors work, and had been called by Father Ernesto to greet Edward briefly before going off to cleanse himself in preparation for dinner. Edward thought he'd get a chance to talk to Scar then, but it ended up that he was seated along with the superior members of the order while Scar had to sit with the other novices, and during the long and entertaining dinner Edward was grilled within an inch of his life regarding colloid solutions and the work of Richard Zsigmondy, a German chemist and one of his supposed contemporaries. Apparently all of that talk about physics was a mere warm up… considering that chemistry was Edward's claimed specialty, he was asked to defend or refute all sorts of important recent work in the field.

Fortunately Edward had been keeping up in his spare time.

After spending a tipsy hour after dessert gloating jealously over the considerable roentogram collection that the Jesuits had amassed and pointing out the various flaws in technique, Edward was ready to go home. Scar had been invited over to observe Edward's mini-lecture, but he watched silently as befitted someone who didn't have the first clue about science. Edward did not want to overstay his welcome so he made as if to excuse himself, and discovered that there was a bit of controversy over whether he was fit to walk home alone, particularly considering his disability and his inebriated state. Ultimately it was decided, without his particular consent but also without any serious objection on his part, that Scar would escort him back to the city.

Dusk had passed and the dog star risen by the time that Edward and Scar exited the monastery. Jupiter in Capricorn, Mars in Sagittarius, and Venus following its own errant course as usual.

"How could you _tell_ them?" Edward asked as he navigated the path, although his voice had something far less than an accusing edge as he swayed a little. "Are you stupid?"

Scar was holding a lantern. "I'm not gifted at extemporaneous... logic. Not the way you are."

"By 'logic' you mean 'lying,' right?" Edward burped, and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "There are lies that are good for the soul, you know."

"Like telling yourself that it's okay to break a taboo?" Scar stepped forward to steady Edward's gait by taking the boy by the arm. "I know that one already, thanks."

Edward examined Scar blearily. "You are a hateful, hateful man."

Scar merely shrugged and continued to maintain a grip on Edward, waltzing the stumbling boy forward with skilled perseverance.

Edward looked up at Scar, trying to see if he could make the muscles of his lips smile. He made several faces until he found the right one. "It's okay. I forgive you."

"Your forgiveness, it means so much." Scar did, however, return the smile, looking faintly pleased and even a bit flushed. "If you tolerate alcohol this badly, Edward Elric, why do you drink it?"

"I think it's required," Edward answered loftily, just before he tripped over a clod of dirt and pitched forward, prevented from a disastrous spill only by the intervention of Scar's grip on his arm. Edward felt something in his automail knee grind. "Stop."

Scar didn't understand what Edward meant at first and continued to tug Edward forward, but Edward stood stock still and retrieved mastery over his arm with a violent tug. "I said, _stop_."

"What's wrong?" Scar asked, voice strangely small. "You don't want…"

"It's not that. It's just… fuck." Edward bent his knee experimentally, and heard again the telltale moan. "I forgot to oil my bearings." Edward had forgotten this for over a month now, actually. Winry would absolutely kill him.

"Is your leg broken?" Scar sounded appropriately horrified.

"Broken? Come on. I have the greatest automail mechanic of all time. I just need to tune things up." Edward felt himself shocked into a slightly higher level of sobriety for the moment. Gingerly, Edward stepped forward, leaning over to brace the affected joint with his hand.

"Does it hurt?"

"These things never do." Edward took another step, totally hobbling. "Damn, this is going to take all fucking night."

"You can't walk on it at all?" Scar was full of helpful suggestions, it appeared.

"No, I can. I just… I shouldn't. At least not normally." Edward sighed. " I can't afford for it to break." The thought caught him with creeping terror. What would it mean to really be a cripple? For good, with no hope of a fix? Edward shivered. Yep, that was enough to drive the effects of alcohol away, conquered by adrenaline. "This is okay." Edward took another step, favouring his leg with a lot more care than he really needed to, always far more solicitous to his artificial limbs when they were in danger of breaking than when he actually needed to care, when they were working just fine. This had happened to Edward once before in this world, but even that had not been enough to shock him into regular daily maintenance.

Scar watched as Edward took a few steps like that and then shook his head. "That's no good. I can't take all night just to make sure you get home safe."

Edward waved Scar off. "Wait some and then go back. I'll be okay, really. I don't need a keeper." Edward grinned, his eyes glinting in the lantern light. "Anyone who wants to rob me is going to be shocked, utterly shocked, when I pulverize them… _with my fist_." Edward curled his automail hand into a fist and brandished it lovingly, with an insane little laugh. "Fist!" Okay, maybe he was back to being a bit drunk. Edward wished he had more control over his body's chemistry than this, but oh well.

Scar stepped in front of Edward and knelt down, patting his shoulder. "Get on. I'll carry you."

"No way." Edward blinked, and then turned beet red. "No. Fucking. Way." Edward was no child requiring a piggyback ride, for fuck's sake.

"I'm sure you'd do the same for me," Scar said dryly. "So come on."

"That's… humiliating. I'd never." Edward shook his head violently.

"Never live over the shame of getting home safely so that you can fix your leg and get back to working on what is really important to you? I see."

There was a very meaningful pause. "I hate you."

"I think you must be my best friend ever," Scar said with a little sarcastic edge to his voice. "Now get on before I have to knock you unconscious and carry you anyway… in my _arms_."

"You wouldn't!"

"Oh, try me." Scar stood up and started to walk toward Edward slowly.

Edward suddenly had visions of Scar carrying his unconscious self back to town only to realize that he didn't know where Edward lived. Damn, the man was just not thinking. "Fine, fine. I'll do it. But only because you'll get lost otherwise."

"Lost?" Scar stopped, looking confused. Edward took advantage of the moment to get behind Scar and press down on the other man's shoulders.

"Get down here," Edward grumbled.

Scar complied, bending to one knee and leaning forward. If there was even one wisecrack, even _one_, Edward would take his automail fist, his very _fist_, and box Scar's ears. Edward put his arms around Scar' neck and then, after a moment hitched himself onto the other man's broad back. Scar twisted his arms around Edward's legs and stood up. Suddenly Edward was seeing the world from Scar's vantage.

God, he hoped he was heavy. Crushingly, impossibly heavy. The kind of heavy that made grown men cry, or perhaps sparkle, as best fit their wont. Edward wanted Scar to have tears of pain in his eyes as he moved forward, the path to Köln becoming the man's own personal Golgotha, crowned with the thorns of Edward's total ruling immovability.

Scar stooped forward at a very acute angle, bending as if Edward weighed no more than a feather, leaning towards the lantern where he'd set it down. "You carry the light." Edward grasped at it with his automail arm and picked it up viciously, holding it out as far from Scar's face as he could. He tried to resist the urge to beat the man on general principles. It was so unfair.

"Can you see?"

"Um… not really." Scar turned his face and Edward could see the blind dazzlement in the other man's uncomfortable squint. Well… it was not _Edward's_ fault that his arm was not made of some resinous polymer that stretched to a reasonable distance.

"Put me down a sec."

Scar dropped Edward gently, and Edward carefully extinguished the light. Fortunately there was a full moon and the sky was clear. "Let's sit here a minute and then go when you can see well enough not to drop me."

Edward did not sit down, however. Neither did Scar, who did not seem to see the motions that Edward was making, first inviting and then commanding him to sit. Eventually Edward gave up in disgust, and inclined his head upwards to look at the mantle of blackness supporting and sustaining the stars.

Together they waited, the moon shining over a scene cool and quiet. They stood still and side-by-side, succumbing to the natural human impulse to scan the night sky. Scar made a small, deep noise when a meteor burned in radiation from Lyra, a fizzling droplet of light that described a most satisfying arc. Edward swayed, his eyes adjusting to the scarcer light with increasing acuity. If there were no moon perhaps the path of the galaxy would be easier to see, but without the moon it would have been impossible to move without the help of a lamp. The moon was helpful but also an obstruction, brightening up the night earth at the expense of the universe beyond, closing down the ceiling of the sky and defining more narrowly the limit's of man's sight. Even light, it seemed, functioned according to the laws of equivalent exchange.

After a few minutes Scar again kneeled and Edward moved forward silently and wrapped his arms around Scar's neck, to be hefted once again. Maybe it was not so awful to be carried… not at night, anyway, when the dark hid much and no one was likely to be around to see.

Although Edward had wished for it and resented it for it being not so, he came to find it comforting that Scar didn't seem to find him heavy. The man did not shift to readjust Edward as the miles passed, not even once, and Edward found himself getting sleepy because of the unchanging pace and the warmth of Scar's body... not to mention the residual alcohol pickling his brain.

Edward decided to rest his eyes a bit.

"Where next?" Scar whispered at one point, and Edward blinked. Somehow he'd dozed while Scar was tending to him and now they were in the city, well past the open and unguarded gate.

Giving a few simple instructions, Edward shook his head to wake himself up, feeling a kind of careful embarrassment as he realized that there was drool on Scar's shoulder. "See? Lost." Maybe it would dry up before Scar noticed. "Aren't you glad you didn't knock me out?"

"I wasn't really going to do that," Scar confessed. "That was a bluff." The man sounded as if he was admitting to highly classified tactical information.

"You don't say," Edward whispered. It was almost charming that this was the extent, probably the full extent, of Scar's deviousness. "Turn left."

A few people did see them as they passed, but not enough to make Edward feel like this was all a horrible mistake. Bed was calling, and Edward was glad that he was almost there. So glad, in fact, that the very thought of it was enough to wake him up some. Scar smelled like… well, like soap, and a little like sweat. A warm smell for a warm body… Edward shivered a little.

After several turns and many hundreds of yards of cobbled streets, Edward spied the house where his flat was and pointed it out. Scar walked him all the way into the gate and (after further instruction) up the outside stairs, stepping quietly so as not to wake Ilse or the other tenant (an irritable retired violinist who seemed to hate all of humanity).

"Here you go," Scar said quietly, stopping in front of the door painted in peeling blue paint.

"Signed, sealed, and delivered," Edward replied, sliding off Scar's back slowly. "…Thanks."

Scar turned to look down at him, tilting his head sideways. "Did you have a good day, Edward Elric?"

"It was interesting." Edward fingered his automail arm absently. He still felt tired, dead tired. But somehow he was reluctant to just go in. "Yes."

"I hope Father Ernesto was not too hard on you."

"No… not really." Edward stifled a yawn. "I bet he was a punk like me, back in the day."

"There's no such thing," Scar said softly. The other man leaned back on the unsteady railing and looked up at the stars.

"As what?"

"A boy…mm, punk, like you." Scar said quietly, still looking away but then turning his head towards Edward, investigating him in full. His voice sounded almost nervous. "You're… very unusual."

Edward wrinkled his nose and grinned. "That's either the nicest thing you've ever said to me, or the most ridiculously brazen."

"You pick," Scar said, his unfathomable smile returning no answer.

"All right." Edward winked and then yawned, this time in earnest. It appeared that he could not help it, his body ruled in all instances. The reluctance heightened as he realized that sleep was inevitable. "I think I need to crash."

Scar nodded, and then paused. "I… I won't be at church this weekend. But I'll be there the next." Hesitantly he put forward his hand in farewell. The pale light picked out the other man's features like those of a carved Syrian relief. "Until then?"

"Alright." Edward took the hand and shook it, and then stood and watched as Scar walked down the stairs and towards the street. He did not turn in until the other man rounded the corner at the far end of the street.


	4. Chapter 4

Idolatry is committed, not merely by setting up false gods, but also by setting up false devils; by making men afraid of war or alcohol, or economic law, when they should be afraid of spiritual corruption and cowardice.  
G.K. Chesterton

 

Sleep framed the interstitial spaces of Edward's life. Although essential, Edward often resented it, because it stole time from his life, time he could be spending in some useful activity. It was rare for him to sleep in, rarer still for Edward to lounge in bed for hours after waking up... at least, not without some heavy alchemical texts to sustain him. But that's exactly what Edward found himself doing the next day, wanting to hold onto some bizarre feeling of solace that had crept over him the night before. It was more then satisfaction that things seemed to be going his way... Edward could not define it, but he lay in bed happily and listened to the bird song and the chime of a friendly wind as it summoned him to drowsy wakefulness.

Ten days. Ten days before he could do anything. Edward went in and out of dozing for a while, dawn passing into early morning, and then late. The kittens were all over his bed the entire time, sometimes sleeping in his hair but more often going into random battles with his toes, attacking his feet from above the covers whenever he moved. One of the kittens, a particularly tiny grey one, became emboldened by Edward's prolonged immobility and crept up next to his face, batting his nose with soft pads. Opening his eyes, Edward picked it up by the scruff of its neck and held it high above him.

"I call category foul," Edward said, shaking his automail finger in front of the kitten's scrunched up face. "The nose is off-limits." The kitten seemed to appear chastened, so Edward dropped it onto his chest and closed his eyes and turned over onto his side, pulling the covers over his head.

Unfortunately, this meant that the kitten was now trapped with him under the covers, and the kitten responded to such a novel situation by exploring all the contours of Edward's body as if it were lost deep within an underground cavern. Miniature claws bit through pajama pants into the skin of his shins and thighs. Edward grimaced and then sat up, pushing back the covers. The grey kitten looked up at him accusingly. On the far end of the bed three other kittens also glared at him, looking up from their posts guarding his toes.

"Let's get some things straight," Edward admonished. "I pay to sleep here." Without warning he pounced for the trilogy of smug faces, who scattered by tumbling off the bed and skittering halfway across the room. The grey kitten, caught in the crossfire, ended up burrowing under the covers. "_Sleep_."

A deep, deep impression was made... for about a nanosecond. Within moments the kittens were gleefully bounding back onto the bed and the shy little grey was peeking out its grey little nose. Edward blew at the fringe of blonde hair framing his face, exasperated, but he did lean forward to touch the tip of the grey's nose fondly. The mom was probably taking a nap under his bed, which was why they were going so crazy.

"You guys sure have some life," Edward observed as he was variously climbed and prodded. Edward unraveled a little bit of the end of the crocheted blanket, clipping off a length of green yarn from one of the many tassels edging the border. He used this to tempt the kittens into a multilateral attack. Soon they were taking turns in vicious battles. "Don't you have anything better to do?" As usual, Edward's sagacious question was completely ignored, seeing as how it did not come with either treats or scary wallops.

After some time playing with the junior predators, Edward got up and walked over to the bathroom. Leaving the door open Edward began to run the water, filling the large free-standing porcelain tub. Although the kittens had followed him in, as soon as the water started they rushed out as if in fear of a mortal enemy.

For the hell of it, Edward opened the far window, leaving the curtains open. No one would be able to see him naked, so he stripped without shame.

Edward looked down at his body. He was thin; too thin, Ilse said. Edward felt his ribcage and belly with automail fingers, the sensation from his torso mocking the lack of feeling that the arm had. Moving to stand in front of the mirror, Edward watched his face as he touched himself, expressionless. Carefully, with practiced skill, Edward brought the automail arm down and touched his penis, stroking it with the same cool motions, numb to any sensation of arousal. He wondered if it would be possible for any person to find such touch arousing if he couldn't make it sexy for himself.

Could anyone find such a body appealing? Prostheses could not hide that he was missing limbs, and even though having them meant that the eye could be tricked into thinking he had a normal shape, there was nothing normal about the way his body felt. Maybe an automail freak like Winry would find him attractive... except that he was short, a good two inches shorter then her. That always seemed to be a problem for women, for reasons he resented even though he kind of understood the rationale. More women had hit on his brother as an _empty shell of armor_. Edward sighed.

His face, now. His face was good. Edward stuck out his tongue and raised his eyebrows seductively. His light-colored eyes had enough green and yellow mixed in that they looked like gold, which had to be an attractive color for the ladies. He had missed the horrors of acne (Edward ignored the little voice in his brain that snarked that he'd also missed the horrors of puberty). Edward brought the automail hand up in front of his mouth and cupped it, exhaling and then scenting the breath. No morning breath. If it weren't for the being short two limbs and a few apparently necessary inches, as well as lacking any kind of build that could be charitably called a "physique," Edward guessed that some person _somewhere_ might judge him to be a prize.

Edward shook himself. What was he thinking? Why did he care about whether or not he'd ever have sexual intercourse? That was not and could not be a priority. Alphonse came first. He always came first.

Closing his eyes, Edward bit his lower lip. Ten days. Waiting was... distracting.

It was not a good idea to soak the automail in a bath, so he usually preferred to take quick showers instead because it was a lot less work. He'd have to be careful about preventing the arm or the leg from spending prolonged time underwater; this meant only filling the tub halfway, keeping his artificial leg draped over the side, and doing most of his cleaning with his left hand. Such meticulous necessities made Edward feel clumsy. Turning off the faucets, Edward placed his right leg in the bath, lowering himself carefully as he kept his left leg raised. This was how people in casts bathed, except that eventually they got over it.

Because Edward was determined to take advantage of his enforced laziness, he did not grab for the soap right away. It felt good to have water lap at his flesh this way. It was not as good as swimming, not like those lazy summer days he'd told Scar about: whole body immersed, moving like a fish through the water as he chased after his brother in silly games that seemed to be all about splashing. Alphonse had been the better swimmer, but then his brother had been better at all sorts of things.

What did Alphonse look like? The first thing that came to mind with this thought was an image of the armor, that hateful armor that had been made to fit his father. Edward had come to love the armor, though, loved it because it had become his brother. And now this was how he remembered him, even though he wished terribly that this were not so. Still, remembering the armor was better then nothing... someday Edward feared that he would lose even that.

"Without natural affection... traitors." Edward grabbed the soap. What was the whole verse? "Fierce... heady... lovers of pleasure..." Slowly he rubbed the brown, cracked bar over his body, under his arms and around his groin. "Proud."

No question, pride was Edward's besetting sin. Not lust, not envy, not greed, not wrath... certainly not sloth. Cardinal among the deadly sins, this was claimed by the Christians to be the sin of the destroyer Lucifer, the fallen morning star. Pride... it was what made Edward think he could restore his mother, and what gave him the shamelessness to follow up that failure with the intention to restore Alphonse to the body he'd lost to the gate. Even now, pride drove him. It had tempted him into betraying his principles so long ago when he carried the shame of a military title, and it tempted him now... heady in his lust for home. For the sake of homesickness Edward would again risk everything; and if Alphonse still wore a body of armor Edward would continue to fight until he had everything, absolutely everything he wanted.

Edward wanted to see his brother's face again. The real face, the one that he could not recall. The face of the brother he used to swim with. The brother he loved.

One of the kittens creeped cautiously into the bathroom, the little grey one. It was a little tom, dapper and yet antsy, keeping to the corners of the room as if that made it invisible.

"Hey you," Edward said, and then obeying some irresistible impulse he splashed a tiny bit of water onto the kitten's fur. This made it run away, scrambling in such shocked surmise that Edward felt a little guilty (even though he laughed). Alphonse had loved kittens and if he was here right now he would have given Edward the most reproachful look. Eventually the kitten slunk back, even more cautious and guarded then before, and Edward leaned over the edge to smile at it invitingly.

"The days of splashing are now over," he promised, almost sincerely. "Come here."

There never existed a cat in the universe that came just because it was called. This one was no exception, and gave Edward a "you must be kidding" look before bounding off back into the bedroom.

"The problem with you lot is that you have no names," Edward called out after it. "That makes you reckless and unaccountable." Edward made a face and then slumped back into the tub, leaning forward so that the tips of his hair dangled in the water. What was he going to do all day? He'd have to eat, of course. Maybe he'd do a little bit of reading, although Edward decided that might be a little too taxing considering his current restless mood. Suppose he spent the whole day brooding instead?

Extracting himself from the bath with all the grace of a seventy-year-old arthritic, Edward swiped a towel from the wall and wiped all the water from his body. The bitter violinist was playing some lovely sad music, a piece that Edward had come to recognize as Schubert's "Ave Maria." Edward hummed along as he stepped out of the bathroom and got dressed. The mama cat emerged from under his bed and began licking her fur, and all of the kittens flocked to her.

"Hey, Fritzi. It's an international disgrace that your babies are without names. You don't want them to grow up to be alchemical-hating terrorists with giant guilt complexes, do you?" Edward had one outfit that was like the black clothes he used to wear all the time at home, and this was the one he chose for today.

Scar... now there was a man who needed a proper name. Timothy just didn't cut it. But what name, really, best fit a man whose primary sin in this world was not pride, but wrath? Did the man even have a real name? If his mother had died before he was born and there was no father to be found, who had named him? His brother?

Edward shook his head. From what little he'd been able to figure out, Scar's brother had been a man after his own flavour, driven by equal amounts pride and sorrow. But Scar... Scar was not unlike Alphonse. Or rather, Alphonse had the potential to be just like Scar. What would be the right kind of name for someone like that? And could someone like Edward ever find it?

Alphonse was a righteous person. The kind of person who would not hesitate to try rip the arm off of a homunculus in order to give it to him, but also the kind of person who also was willing to risk Edward's life in order to protect a different homunculus, the one the brothers had created together. Addicted to emotional justice and therefore sometimes a bit blind to the real thing. Edward wanted to think that he knew better, but deep down he knew that he had his own blindness, just for different things.

Picking up the grey kitten, Edward smiled a little as it scrambled to escape his grip. Grey was the color of steel; the color of automail but also the color of armor. It reminded him of his brother. "You, you're Al." He rubbed the kitten under its neck, scratching it until it began to run its motor and purr. "From now on, that's your name."

What was he going to do all day? Brood, for real?

Would he have to spend ten days like this?

The very thought was intolerable.

 

 

This time the room was dark when Edward broke in.

Although he tried for a cat-like landing, a few things were misjudged and there was some absolutely electrifying clattering that caused Edward to freeze as he tried to find his footing on Scar's (normally neat) desk. A little moonlight tricked in the window, but the angle of the light was so acute as to be completely useless. When Edward cast his gaze over to where he knew that Scar's mattress (and hopefully, Scar himself) was, all he could see was a veil of black that his retinas refused to clarify.

Edward stood frozen on the desk for a good few minutes, until the silence reassured him that no alarm would be raised. Sneaking down to the floor, the small alchemist slinked along the floor like a paratrooper, moving forward mostly using the motive force from his left arm and right leg to stealth his way over to the floor-level bed; there was no frame for the mattress, which lay directly on the cold stone.

This was a complicated procedure, and by the time Edward was in place his eyes had become properly adjusted, and he could see a few things. A face and then hair like a shroud resolved in the dim light. Edward sat up, and then slowly leaned closer and closer, squinting so that he could decide whether Scar was really asleep.

Up close Scar's face looked unusually pure in the faint shadow of the moonlight. Not calm, not composed, not even in sleep... but the face carried a gentleness and clarity that reminded Edward of the warmth of Mediterranean seas. Edward wondered, idly, what name Scar would have garnered if the Fuhrer had been handing out titles to the enemies of State Alchemists. The Scribbled Arm Alchemist, maybe. Involuntarily, Edward reached forward to pull down the blanket, some strange obsessive impulse making him not quite sure that the arrays that had formerly been tattooed there were really gone.

"I am wearing clothes," a hushed whisper broke into the silence. "So stop checking."

Edward flew backwards, landing on his back and his bad arm as some inelegant choking noise escaped his lips. He raised a finger and pointed it towards Scar's head. "You're awake," he accused.

Scar moved and Edward saw the indistinct shape struggle sleepily to arrange itself into a less recumbent posture. "I am now," was the caustic reply. "What were you doing?"

"Looking at your arm."

As soon as Edward said it, he froze. That had not been a politic thing to say.

There was a little bit of rustling, and then Edward saw Scar lean forward to grab him with the arm in question. The fingers around his forearm held him in an amazingly strong grip, and Edward felt himself fly forward as the other man jerked his arm back. His face hit the mattress with a thud, but in an instant he was jerked upwards, Scar holding him up like a hunter examining some recently subdued prey. Or maybe like a bird, strung up and about to be gutted. "What about it?" The whisper was hostile.

It hurt. It hurt too much. Reflexively Edward reached up with his automail to protect the only arm he had left, and tears came to his eyes as he backhanded Scar with the full strength of steel. Instantly the other man's grip slackened as he crumpled backwards.

What was that? Edward wiped away his tears and felt his breath become ragged with post-adrenaline stress. Up until this point Scar had been nothing but kind, even if it had always been couched in Scar's peculiar ways. Obviously Edward had made a mistake, said something wrong, but did that really merit the level of violence with which Scar grabbed him? The other man was now curled up on his side, hand clutching at his face, and Edward felt his lips tingle with the sick realization that he might have broken Scar's nose.

For a few minutes Edward just sat there, stunned, watching Scar writhe in agony from some wound that Edward could not really see. Somehow Scar managed not to make any noise at all, which was absolutely frightening.

Edward rubbed his arm warily. Eventually, slowly, the small boy moved forward, frightened and cautious and yet with a pressing need to find out for sure what he had done.

Carefully Edward touched Scar's arm, announcing his presence, and when there was no combative response Edward crawled closer to Scar's head, reaching with his fingertips to touch the other man's right hand. "Are you okay?" he whispered, tugging gently, trying to pry the fingers loose so he could examine the other man's face. It was not possible to move that clutching hand, however, so Edward just allowed his hand to curl helplessly over Scar's.

"I'm sorry," was the muffled, strained reply, a bitter whisper surprising in its level of self-condemnation. Scar's hand was shaking, Edward realized. No, his whole body was. The tremor resonated up into Edward's arm.

"Why did you grab me?" Edward asked softly.

"I didn't want you to touch me." Bitterness, evolving into mocking irony.

Reflecting on this a bit, Edward hesitantly lifted his hand. Before he could move away, however, Scar let go of his own face and slapped Edward's hand down to the mattress, covering it with his own very easily. Edward saw, then, a gash across the right side of Scar's cheek clipping the edge of his lip. There was a small trickle of blood. It looked bad, but not disfiguring. The man's eyes were full of a smoldering darkness. "I didn't want you to touch me," he repeated slowly. "But you don't need to run away."

Run away? Edward tested his ability to move his hand out from under Scar's, but unless he gained about five hundred more pounds, he felt it unlikely that he'd be budging any time soon. Not that he was burning to escape, however... _he_ was the one who was the intruder, after all. The palm covering his wrist and knuckles was hot, but totally dry. Scar's skin felt like that of a man with an unbroken fever, and it made the rest of Edward's body suddenly feel cold. "I'm not going anywhere," Edward heard himself whisper, using the kind of voice he had often used when comforting Alphonse in the past. "Tell me why you did that."

"I don't know," Scar whispered back, shedding somehow years of mystery and restraint and sounding simply confused, honestly confused.

Could Scar have been frightened? But of what? And, why? Edward felt himself overcome with exhaustion and lowered himself to the floor, so that he could look at Scar's face without trying forcefully to regain use of his hand or using any more strength to hold himself up. He huddled to the stone floor, prone, wishing suddenly that Scar had a bigger mattress, one that could fit him since he was going to be lying down for a bit while he figured things out.

In stages, Scar's face lost the angled strangeness and returned to baseline calm. Eventually he just closed his eyes altogether. "At least I'm not completely naked this time," he murmured.

"You're _funny_ when you're naked," Edward replied, but still using soft tones instead of his normal barbs. It was true. The memory of Scar, this impressively tall and muscular man, cringing in abject terror as he gripped a balled up cotton shirt in front of his genitals, was extremely amusing. Edward felt himself smile. "When was the last time anyone saw you like that?"

"I don't remember," Scar confessed, sounding unusually vulnerable. "Am I really... funny?" The way he asked the question made it clear that he dreaded the kind of honesty that made him out to be any kind of cosmic physical joke.

"Not any more then anyone," Edward replied, careful to sound as casual as possible. "It just wasn't very like you, I guess."

"I don't know what is 'like me.'" Scar said quietly. "What am I like?"

Edward frowned. What an impossible question. Although he was hardly pinned down, with Scar's hand over his own Edward found himself completely disinclined to move, although some parts of his body (such as his knee, or his cheek) were starting to whine in discomfort. "You're very serious," he said at last.

"I see." Scar sounded somewhat unhappy with that answer, mulling it over slowly, prodding the way someone with a loose tooth prods it with his own tongue.

"That's not a bad thing," Edward felt himself compelled to say. "Alphonse is like that, sometimes."

Scar opened his eyes to that. Slowly, slowly, he withdrew his hand, fingertips brushing over fine bones. "Are you cold?" he whispered.

Cold? It was so hard to say. Edward felt his breathing go all peculiar, felt his body ache in a rush of fluttering sensations squeezing his heart and strangling his innards. "The floor is hard," he whispered back.

"There's room up here." Edward swallowed as Scar fumbled to made room, slowly moving away. He lost focus on Scar's eyes, it was too dark to see them clearly. "It's not soft, but it's... better. Kind of."

Without really categorizing what he was doing, Edward got up and found himself settling into the warm spot on Scar's bed, silently adjusting himself so that his back was to the other man, allowing him to arrange the blankets so that they covered them both. Not wanting to hang over the edge, Edward felt it only natural to bring his body closer to the center of the mattress. Before he knew it he was fitting his back to Scar's chest and belly, the convexity of his spine adjusting to the concavity of the other man's form. He felt warm breath tickle at his ear, and a hard pressure aching against his sacrum as Scar curled around him. The sensation of pressure resolved into a kind of throbbing warmth and made Edward feel a bit sweaty. Ah. That would be the penis, then.

Maybe this was why Scar hadn't wanted to be touched. But why was he hard? Had he been masturbating before Edward had arrived? If so... about what? Who? Edward felt himself curious, achingly curious. His own cock felt a twinge of sympathy and became a little hard, too. It was rather nice to have such arms and legs as Scar had caged around his body, relaxing into a hold that included even his artificial limbs. It was nice to be warm, and being this close to Scar brought a whiff of scent to his nose that was suspiciously like incense, like the frankincense and myrrh of the dead kings whose secrets Edward needed to steal. It was a foreign smell, exotic in both the pejorative and laudatory senses of the word. It was different. Scar was different. And his body felt so new.

Suddenly Edward felt that his breathing was too loud. It seemed to fill the whole room, and he made attempts to suppress the noise, wanting to hide the fact that all this touching was making him feel. For the first time in ages Edward felt completely comfortable and yet he was ill-at-ease, his body listing blissfully into a strange kind of relaxation that was accompanied by specific tensions, in his jaw and in his hips and at his tongue. He liked this. He liked being held, being touched like this. But at the same time he wished he was somewhere else, that his body wasn't present to betray his pleased responses. If only he could forbid his lungs to breathe.

Lips touched the nape of Edward's neck, as warm and as dry as the palm of Scar's hand. Edward closed his eyes. Scar had to stretch to do that; that was not something that could be done unintentionally through the course of an embrace. He felt Scar's upper arm begin to move, hesitantly finding his right hand and squeezing it, probably very hard. Edward loved his automail for what it could give him, proprioception and movement being chief. But sometimes he missed the finer aspects of touch, and he missed them now, wondering if Scar was squeezing hard enough to hurt.

Edward burrowed in deeper, digging his body in against Scar's in a desperate squirm. This caused the lips on his neck to part, and he felt a tongue sear his flesh as he was kissed. The kiss was first one, and then two, and soon several and multiple. It felt good, good to be touched so much. The penis against his back slipped down between his legs, and suddenly he realized that Scar was naked from the waist down. Edward wanted to be naked too, but there was absolutely no way for this to happen, not so long as the strong arms clinging to him refused to let him move.

Oh, Scar surely must have been masturbating over something. Edward knew how that was; a person did not lie in bed with no pants or underclothes and only think pure thoughts. The violence made perfect sense now. Now all Edward was left to puzzle over was the question of who it was that Scar desired. Maybe it could have been him, but Edward doubted it. Probably it was that woman, whoever Lust had been before she died. Edward felt his body grow even hotter as he contemplated, hazily, the thought that maybe he was being used.

Kisses transformed into bites, and Edward felt a low moan escape from his mouth, one which frightened him because it felt far too loud. Scar, however, barely seemed to notice, and was now thrusting his cock in between Edward's legs with increasing confidence and probably increasing desperation. Not knowing what else to do with his left hand, Edward reached down between his legs and touched the other man, the tip of the penis wet and large between his still-cold fingers.

All movement halted instantly. A hoarse whisper, in his ear. "Are you all right?" In reply Edward curved his fingers around the shaft of Scar's penis, a shaft much larger then his own was. This caused a heavy sigh to escape Scar's throat, a thick-sounding noise that made Edward think of summer honey, the kind made from red clovers. Scar relinquished control of his "private parts" without the least bit of fuss once he figured out that Edward was not going to stop this.

Edward wanted to turn around and face Scar. He wanted to be naked and free to move. But he wasn't, and couldn't. So he used his fingers to pleasure Scar, using his fingers and thinking about what it would be like to use his mouth. It felt good to be held, and wanted, and used. Why this was, Edward did not know, but neither did he much care. It felt good. That's all he wanted or needed to know.

At the critical moment, Scar came, and Edward winced as the stickiness shot out directly into the inseam of his pants. Scar made noises; relieved, elated, but quiet, and Edward continued to hold the other man's penis even as it lost all erection. Scar's new-found flaccidity was not helping Edward keep his own arousal in check. Even without desperate tension in his biceps, even relaxed, the taller, stronger man's arms were tight around Edward's slight frame. Scar's breath was warm and moist on Edward's clammy skin, breathing through his mouth with the air hunger that comes from all kinds of exertion and certain kinds of anxiety.

Well. This was almost like sex. Edward had never done anything like it before, and although he adhered to the philosophy that the only real sex was penetrative, that didn't mean that he hadn't leapfrogged over all sorts of personal bests and shed several gradations of virginity by touching another man's cock and helping him come. It was hard to think, but Edward tried to consider the situation. What he did next would do much in defining the meaning of the encounter. Edward was hard, and his desperate initial impulse after masturbating Scar to climax was to do the same for himself.

But why do that when he had another person here, holding him so intimately and making him feel so inexplicably hot?

Gently Edward petted Scar's cock, touching the delicate skin and becoming fixated on the fantasy of taking it into his mouth. This would be the perfect time to try it, when Scar's arousal was refractory to stimulation. That would surely commit Edward to a certain meaning, however, a meaning he wasn't sure he wanted to explore. It was simply not possible for a man to lie with another man using the same kind of license that he would with a woman, not without risking the kind of rejection that ended in violence. Scar had already proven himself touchy when it came to Edward taking unexpected liberties, but even setting that aside, Edward was a little disturbed. Disturbed to want what he wanted.

When Scar's breathing stilled, Edward stopped his gentle exploration and removed his hand slowly. Maybe if he simply stayed still and did nothing, no choices would have to be made, but this was not Edward's style. Refusing to accept the full implication of what it meant to touch another man sexually, Edward did not want to reject the truth either. What was happening was real, and not something he wanted to pretend away. Slowly he undid the buttons of his trousers and then took one of Scar's hands, using his automail hand and guiding fingers which were so much bigger then his own down the front of his pants.

Scar inhaled sharply when Edward curled metal fingers around his own real ones, and the lips on his neck quivered as the other man dug carefully through the fabric of Edward's undergarments, finding the opening by which he could release Edward's cock. It would have been easier if Edward helped, but he didn't want to. He wanted the sensations that accompanied the clumsy way that his clothes and body were explored. His whole body responded, diaphragm muscles clenched and heart radiating strange pulses of desire that tickled into his spine. Edward felt his fingers flash cold and then hot. These were feelings that never came when he touched himself, never.

Even though he could feel clearly every motion of Scar's body, Edward couldn't even begin to guess what the other man was thinking. Obviously the man didn't hate it, but beyond that it was hard to predict the kind of meaning that Scar could be assigning to all this. Edward was all too familiar with the fact that most humans acted out of deep-seated ambivalence, not even knowing for themselves their thoughts from moment to moment. Maybe, probably, Scar was like this too. When Edward's cock was free Scar bent his index and middle finger around the shaft, circling together with his thumb to grab the base. Even though Edward had used his whole hand on Scar's cock and there had been still an inch or so of grip to spare, the reverse was not at all true. Edward breathed deeply, closing his eyes with the scarcest moan.

Before Scar began pulling and tugging on the shaft, the man took a moment to kiss Edward's neck thoughtfully, the open-mouthed exploration using lots of tongue. Scar's tongue was strong, pressing into Edward's skin fiercely. The kiss suggested desire, desire unsated and tenaciously insatiable. Edward's cock ached impatiently and he pushed his ass as hard as he could into Scar's body, troubling the other man and bedeviling him with his needs. He wanted to be touched, more and more. He would beg, he would demand... Edward would do anything to make Scar bring him to climax. Slowly the fingers on his cock began to move, working carefully as the other man tested Edward's tolerances.

Scar's natural pace for masturbation was somewhat slower then Edward's, more squeezing and deliberate. It wasn't quite right, not at all what his cock had come to expect after all those years of solo pleasure, but even though his cock seemed confused and was taking a little bit longer to respond, the rest of Edward's body twisted in shameless pleasure. He had not touched his lips to Scar's body yet, not once, but despite that he felt as if he knew what it would taste like, the touch of skin against his back and lips on his neck informing his imagination with dozens of new sensations.

It didn't take long for him to come. Edward was too young and too aroused to have any kind of tantric staying power. Semen wept into the side of his pants, mixing with Scar's drying come, but it also got onto the sheets. Obeying an almost irresistible impulse, Edward touched the tip of his cock to catch a smear of his bodily juices, rubbing it between his fingers so that he could feel the sticky, almost synovial texture. It was like joint fluid, viscous, but it was also like sap.

Scar released the penis and groped, awkwardly, until he found Edward's hand, accidentally getting a dollop of come in the bargain. Apparently that didn't matter... Scar held his hand anyway, effectively preventing Edward from taking any further autonomous action. They lay together like this in silence for many minutes.

"Scar..."

The other man slowly disengaged from Edward's body, pulling back. "Face me," Scar whispered.

Rolling over, Edward turned to see the lines of Scar's body, all color bleeding away from his contours and eyes which looked so different with pupils dilated. On impulse Edward flipped back the sheets, kicking them off the edge of the bed. "I'm hot," he explained, carefully trying not to look too obviously at Scar's undressed half, wanting to catch any flicker of Scar's eyes that indicated that the other man might be checking him out in turn.

In a depressing display of self-control, Scar didn't do anything of the sort. The man seemed to prefer to search his face instead, calm and unblinking. "I need to understand something," he said softly. "Why are you here?"

"To talk to you," Edward answered, looking down and feeling himself flush as he took in all of Scar's nakedness, first on accident and then in prying curiosity.

"That's not what I meant," Scar said, shaking his head, seeming not to care where Edward was looking, although he did discretely place one hand down in front of his penis, resting it casually on the mattress in such a way that it happened to totally obstruct Edward's view. "Why are you _here_, in this place?"

"The monastery?"

"No, this world." Scar sounded frustrated, as if angry with himself that he didn't have the power to make his meaning more plain. "Why did you come here? I thought you were here to torment... that Ishibala..." Scar cut himself off. "Is it possible you are dead?"

This was enough to cause Edward to tear his glance away from Scar's lower body and look up, examining the man in full. "What in the fuck are you talking about?"

Sitting up, Scar ground the heel of one hand into his forehead, which was either the expression of someone nursing a terrible headache or that of someone exercising underused mental pathways in search of the right words. "What do you remember about your last moments in our world?" Scar asked at last. "What were you doing?"

"Trying to resurrect Al, of course."

"Resurrect?" Scar caught his breath. "He _died_?" Scar turned to narrow his eyes at Edward. "You never mentioned this." With a semi-disgusted movement Scar reached down for the sheets and pulled them up to cover his body, taking no care to provide similar cover for Edward. "When?"

"Something... happened." Edward whispered. "There was a homunculus, and he could change shapes...."

Scar raised an eyebrow, but his tone was less harsh as he prodded Edward to continue. "And?"

"I told you how Homunculi are created, right?"

Scar nodded, lips tight and frowning a little.

"He was... he was... my father's..." Edward coughed, looking away. "My father's son..." Very briefly, in a voice hollow and devoid of feeling, Edward described how the homunculus known as Envy had punched a hole in his heart. "The next thing I remember, Rose was waking me. She told me... she told me that Al had used the Philosopher's Stone... and he was gone..."

Hanging his head and trying to find the words to continue, Edward felt as the blankets that Scar had grabbed were arranged over his shoulders and around his body. For a moment the other man's arms enveloped him, but after everything was in place they were gone. "I'm sorry, Edward Elric," Scar whispered. "I did not mean..."

"To judge me?" Edward laughed hollowly. "Of course you did."

There was nothing but quiet. Edward felt brittle superiority laced with raw anger. How could this happen? The first time he touched another person in a sexual way, and this was the follow up? Accusations and forced confessions?

"I can never say what I mean," Scar finally said, and his words were very unhappy. "Saving Alphonse was the one truly good thing my dying did. I am... sad... to hear it failed." Devastated, sounded more like it.

"No, you ended up saving me instead. The Philosopher's Stone... Al used it to save _me_. Ironic, isn't it?" Edward pulled the blankets tight around his shoulder. He was not cold, exactly, but for some reason he was shivering.

"Not if you are here," Scar whispered. "Not if you're dead too."

"I'm not... you're not..." Edward spluttered, a certain dark suspicious unclouding his mind and giving him unwanted clarity. "Dead. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. What's wrong with you?"

A hand on his shoulder, and Edward was pulled back, pushed down into the mattress so that Scar could loom, leaning over Edward's body. Lying down, Scar's face looked so far away. "What makes you so sure you're... we're... not?"

"This is a different world, that's all. It's the place that powers alchemy."

"Hell, you mean?" There was Scar's characteristic dryness of tone, obviously code for 'you're wrong, infidel.'

"No, dimwit. Europe." Edward wondered if he dared mention the other continents of this Earth, or if that would make Scar's brain explode.

"And you know this how?"

Edward gritted his teeth in frustration. This was the weak part of his argument. Saying "because my father told me so" would be unacceptably juvenile, and mentioning anything about the truths he'd learned from the gate would merely cause Scar's judgment crazed-mind to transform that into proof for his ridiculous point of view. "Never mind."

Half expecting Scar to gloat over him in triumph, Edward was surprised when the other man began to touch his hair, brushing it back from his face. It was too hard to read Scar's expression; the light was too poor. "I have decided," he said softly. "I will help you."

Inhaling deeply, Edward could only guess what that kind of decision meant through the lens of Scar's distorted perception of reality. "I believe that Alphonse is alive," Edward whispered.

"I know," Scar said. Edward's scalp tingled with every pass of Scar's fingers. "I know."

Was it possible for Scar to spare some of his exuberant capacity for belief into showing some small level of agreement that Edward's hope was justified? Closing his eyes, Edward could feel the pity in Scar's touch.

Apparently not.


	5. Chapter 5

No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical.  
Niels Bohr

 

The next three and a half weeks were absolute torture, on all scales. Scar had decided, unilaterally, that it would be best to postpone requesting the key for at least that long, so that it would not be suspicious when he finally did. This was one of only many personal flourishes that Edward had to endure as his plan was modified for, as Scar had pointed out, "optimal results."

When it came to plotting, Scar was a lot more hands-on and practical than Edward had expected. Although Edward had planned on seeing if Scar could find out how to open the tomb, the other man dismissed this idea as completely reckless and had ordered… ordered!… Edward to figure it out on his own, suggesting that he look into forming a relationship with one of the two regular custodians at the cathedral.

Although Edward had already done that, it had never really occurred to him that someone as lowly as a cleaning person would have knowledge of how to open the tombs… that seemed like something that would require another key and probably a high priest. Scar had scoffed at Edward's religious ignorance and had hinted at classist failings on Edward's part; attitudes that pissed Edward off to no end, particularly when he found out that Scar's suggestion had been spot-on. Apparently the Catholics thought nothing of entrusting access to certain holy mysteries into the hands of faithful laity, for the simple and depressingly prosaic reason that the seal on the tomb needed to be periodically checked in order to preserve the bones. Although Edward would have assumed that experts would be required for that, Scar had pointed out that all of the experts of note were off playing in France and Italy.

No, it had not helped Edward's mood at all when, after only the most rudimentary probing, the custodian named Bernard had given Edward not only a detailed description of the procedure involved in accessing the tombs, but freely catalogued all of the contents as he described their sublime beauty. Discovering through the testimony of a first-hand witness that there were piles of decaying manuscripts exactly of the type he was interested in was only moderately comforting, and it didn't even help to know that the next scheduled inspection was some five years off, even though that gave him security against the one part of his plan he'd never been to clear on… how to keep his theft from being discovered until a long time after he was gone.

There was something very, very irritating about Scar's lack of gloating when Edward finally admitted to him that he had been right.

The worst part, the absolutely worst, was Scar's insistence on being in on the break-in itself. Edward wanted the man to simply hand over the key and ask no questions when it was returned intact in a few days. Scar's opinion, however, was that it would look amazingly suspicious if he didn't actually go to the cathedral on the night he requested access for… well, whatever it was that religious people did when given a large and presumably holy space for spending their amazing amounts of guilt. Beat their breasts?

This had precipitated a furious, if quietly argued, fight in Scar's rooms one of the several nights that Edward found himself breaking in to go over the details of his grand plan. Edward wanted Scar to just go over to his apartment on the night in question and wait things out there, but nooooo: Scar had decided that someone needed to stand watch, ready to help out if necessary. Ultimately Edward was compelled to cave in (which he did very gracelessly), because under no circumstances was Scar planning on letting him get anywhere near to touching the key, a fact that drove Edward crazy. Not because it implied any limits of trust on Scar's part… the very fact that Scar was willing to go this far belied that… but because it deprived him of the autonomy that Edward felt belonged to him by birthright.

Maybe even more worse than the worst, worst of _all_ was that there was no more sex or sex-like activities. Scar seemed completely uninterested in initiating anything, treating every subsequent visit by Edward as a kind of pre-op planning session, displaying a militant single-mindedness that outpaced anything he'd ever seen in actual military personnel (except, perhaps, Riza Hawkeye). Was this how a person became a terrorist, by treating oneself as a one-man army? Edward could almost envy Scar his facility in compartmentalizing his life so thoroughly, dividing shame from lust… and lust from action.

But after having had a taste of what it meant to have another person touch his cock, Edward found that mere masturbation had become a lot more frustrating (if no less effective). Locking himself into the bathroom so that the kittens couldn't watch, Edward would stand under the showerhead and jerk off violently. It pissed him off that Scar's body came to mind so much more readily than that of, say, Winry. Although Edward could safely say that Winry's face and look were burned into his mind, never to be forgotten, he'd never touched her _in that way_ and that made fantasizing about her dull when compared to the fresh sensations his mind wanted to browse.

Sometimes Edward and Scar met during the day, too. Usually for coffee or a lunch. No covert actions were discussed during these meetings; instead, Edward spent inordinate amounts of time drawing Scar into his world of Alphonse-related broodings. It sometimes occurred to him that such talk might be boringly repetitive, but Scar seemed to have endless interest and therefore it all seemed okay. These were just about the only times that Edward wasn't on the brink of either strangling or raping the man, even though it still sometimes felt surreal to be keeping company with someone who had once blown up his artificial arm and half of his brother's body without breaking a sweat.

When the chosen day finally arrived, Edward was hard pressed to maintain his authentic atheistic cred because of an almost irresistible impulse to get down on his knees and praise every god that he had ever heard of for the fact, the joyous fact, that he had managed to get through all this time without committing a capital felony on his co-conspirator and one-time-only sexual partner.

Breakfast was yogurt (a milk-product of dubious repute), lunch was sandwiches and grape juice, and dinner was postponed for strategic reasons. By four in the evening, Edward feared that he was far too anxious to eat, filled with nausea and bilious worry. What if something happened to Scar? Like… what if he tripped over his robes while planting his strawberries or whatever and ended up with broken wrists, a bite through his tongue, a smashed nose, and probably seizures and a subdural haematoma? What if he got caught up in reading St. Augustine's Confessions and became so moved by all the hair-shirting that he started to cry like a baby and forgot the time? Or what if he met up with this world's doppelganger of Alphonse (Edward just knew there had to be one) and, inadvisedly besotted, had strapped the poor boy to a bed and was busy sucking his dick? These were the kinds of thoughts that made him want to tear out his brain.

At ten minutes after four Edward left the flat and made his way to the strategy café, a place where he'd hung out many times in the past few weeks which happened to be conveniently situated within visual inspection range of the entrance to the cathedral. This was the place he'd spent so much time with Scar (and even more time on his own), polishing his cover persona as an eccentric and brilliant scientist who happened to be harmless, completely harmless, thank you very much. So, it would not be unusual for him to study there now, study in such an abstracted way that no one would think it odd that he stayed until dusk. When the café closed, Edward would leave, but only to go to the strategy restaurant just down the corner, where he would take his usual spot near the window and gorge himself on sauerbraten until he puked.

Discretely, Edward took notes. Each person who entered the cathedral was documented, given a identifying cipher such as "red hat" or "questionable pinstripes," carefully annotated in the back cover of the book he was pretending to read. Whenever that person left, Edward would find his code and cross it off. This way he could keep a running tally of whoever was coming and going. Initially, Edward planned on doing this from the crack of dawn on the day in question, but Scar had pointed out (in annoyingly smug fashion) that he'd never be able to sustain that kind of level of surveillance without looking suspicious. Scar would know about stalking, Edward supposed, so he took the man's advice (albeit reluctantly) and started later in the day, despite carrying a nagging fear that some superhuman churchgoer was escaping his cataloguing. Every now and then a person left who had not been on the "input" tally, and those people were vengefully written in a column entitled "SEE?" which he intended to show to Scar sometime in the near future, after the mission was complete.

Once Edward saw Bernard locking up the cathedral, he settled his tab and, very casually, went to hide in some bushes (unfortunately not very close to the entrance). To the best of his knowledge, every person entering had been accounted for, and the cathedral was now empty. It took some time for him to find the confidence to cross the open court of stone and stairs… but eventually he did, made occult by the lack of strong lighting. Tonight the stars were not out, concealed by thick clouds. Not far from the main entrance was a recessed alcove; dressed in black with bright hair covered with a hat, Edward felt himself relatively obscure and safe as he waited for Scar to arrive.

Without a watch, Edward could not know the time, but it was probably around ten o'clock when Scar arrived. Edward watched in silence as the man crossed the courtyard unhurriedly and went directly to the front doors, letting himself in. Edward waited about five minutes before he followed, moving swiftly but holding himself upright, as if he had every right to be there. Standing under the vaulted entrance framed by foreboding statues of the church's saints, Edward restrained a shiver. Carefully he tested the far right door; swallowing nervously, he let himself in.

Expecting everything to be black, Edward had forgotten about the candles, the prayers of fire left behind by the faithful. There was the feeling of a winter night festival in the light, ruby and blue as it glittered through colored glass. More candles than Edward would have imagined were lit; and there was Scar, dropping coins in the collection box so that he could light more, distant in the echoing silence of the vast church.

The man had almost no money, but Edward knew for a fact that the little stipend he did have went almost entirely here; it was rare for Scar to drink more than tea when spending time with Edward, even now that the alchemist had brow-beaten Scar into a Dutch-only payment policy. And now he was at it again.

"I like that light," Edward said as he stepped up behind Scar, who turned to face him, expression unreadable. As usual these days, Edward's eyes were immediately drawn to the healing cut on the right side of Scar's chin, the gash only recently closed and still scabbed over. It was not pretty. The good thing was that it didn't extend to the mouth or nose, and that it was a relatively clean wound, only slightly jagged. But it seemed more than shameful that rationale for the name 'Scar' was now restored by the work of Edward's hand: the wound would certainly leave a mark that the man would wear for the rest of his life.

"Do you? Good." Scar held up his lantern, not yet lit. "I have this if we need it."

"Probably we will." Edward made as if to step closer, but then paused. To cover his near-slip, Edward dug into his pockets and pulled out a few small coins, dropping them into the collection box and then lighting a few candles. Already he could feel his bile rising, all of the annoyance that he'd nurtured over the varied, disruptive ways that Scar was interfering with his life coming to the fore. Scar's matter-of-factness made clear that what had happened the one time that Scar had become so… familiar… with him was anomalous, unusual. Edward, who had been more than willing to assign at least some level of comradely meaning to the whole affair, felt more than a bit insulted that Scar seemed to assign no meaning or think about it at all. Even the wound was never mentioned, and Edward hadn't yet found the nerve to ask how Scar had explained it away.

"I see," Scar said, after a prolonged pause. "Shall I light it now?" Cool, professional indifference.

"Please." Edward could play this game too; had, for the last several weeks. Hostility masked as politeness marked his retort.

Orange, ugly light wicked into being, drowning out the evanescent flicker of the gentle candlelight. Scar turned from Edward and started to walk towards the main aisle, going further into the nave of Kölner Dom. Edward followed, staying on the outskirts of Scar's parameter of artificial light. He did not need Scar to lead him to the shrine, but there was an attraction to staying behind and being led… Edward's stomach was fluttering nervously again. He wanted so, so badly for this to turn out well, and feared the oppression of a hostile universe wanting to frown upon his goals and condemn him to a lonely, brotherless fate. Although not religious Edward could not help but be a bit superstitious, and it seemed to him that his own strong desire could somehow defeat him if he did not keep it assiduously in check.

Once situated in front of the golden tomb, Scar turned to Edward. "I can help if you'd like."

"That's all right." Edward held out his hand. "Just give me the lamp and sit over there." Edward pointed to some pews nearby. "I don't think this will take very long."

Retreating into the role of an audience member, Scar stepped out silently, doing what he was told although his face wore a judgmental frown. Edward took a deep breath, wanting to say something more, but his priority was clear. Examining the tiny gold figures on the tomb, Edward decided to wipe Scar and his dourness from his mind. There were two panels; the smaller on top for Caspar, and the larger for the part of the tomb that contained Melchior and Balthasar. Edward reached forward and felt for the hidden seam, and after a minute of careful probing found the first latch.

Opening the panel was easy, but after that was done Edward was at a bit of a loss. Shining the light on the inside revealed a jumbled mess of artifacts plus a smooth rounded object that could only be the top of a skull. It would not do to just start feeling around in there; Edward didn't want to accidentally cause damage to the remains of the dead, whoever they might be. Experimentally, Edward tugged on the platform at the base of this part of the tomb, and was surprised and not a little bit relieved to see that it could be pulled out.

Bones, gold relics, ancient wealth, and the scent of spice. Under the heel bones of the dead was a moderate sized folio. Edward picked it up and carefully opened it, slowly pulling out one sheet of paper by the edge. The paper was like rice, ghost-transparent and slightly rough. Hebrew letters peeked out at him, familiar to him as the work of a kabbalist. Edward had seen many lesser such works already, and his fingers tingled.

A tear came to his eyes. This looked authentic, real.

Never had he felt so close to Alphonse. Surely this, if anything, was true _tikkun_, true restoration. Touching the words was like reaching out to his brother, the gate that separated them palpable even if invisible. Theurgy through sacrifice of pieces of the soul was the promise and the threat, the only true magic this world had to offer. The careful letters bleeding into the page, painted in shadowed gold that gleamed tremulously in the spitting lantern light, holding words that promised power. This was power that Edward would make his own.

"One out of three manuscripts secured," Edward called out, reporting to Scar the status of his search, not able to completely smooth the emotion from his voice.

No response. Well, who cared what Scar thought anyway? This was good news and Edward stood unashamed, if tearful. So close.

Restoring the bones that the church claimed belonged to Caspar, Edward went to work on the other two tombs and had similar success. Really, it all seemed so easy. Dusting the last folio off and putting it into his knapsack, Edward experienced an odd mixture of elation and feeling cheated. The simplicity of the task made all of the work he'd gone to beforehand seem so cheap… if the information contained in these manuscripts was what he expected it to be, having his search turn out so well at the end seemed like an unsatisfactory ending. Edward had to remind himself that there was still much left to do; having the manuscripts was one thing, but translating and understanding them quite another. This was not the end, really, just _an_ end. The real conclusion would be when he held his brother in his arms again and knew that he was real, alive, and hopefully whole.

"I'm done," he announced, and then walked over to where Scar waited, watching him silently. "Let's go."

Instead of standing up, Scar gave Edward a look that was almost sad. "Can we stay a minute?"

"What for?" Edward found it hard to keep the edge out of his voice… he was eager to look at the paperwork as quickly as possible, and had thought that he'd go with Scar back to the monastery to decompress before getting to work. Hadn't Scar had enough time to pray, if that's what he wanted to do?

"I… I don't expect I'll be seeing you again," Scar said quietly. "I just wanted a moment more." He stood up, looking away. "But you're right. We should go. This is… selfish of me."

"Selfish?" Edward felt his lips tingle numbly, all sense of irritation fleeing.

"I'm sorry, Edward Elric." Scar began to walk away slowly, head held straight without turning. "I'm sorry you had to tolerate me, even after…" A pause, a shrug, indicating what could only be broken sentiment. "But now you have what you need."

"Tolerate you?" Edward hefted his knapsack and quickly followed Scar, grabbing his arm from behind.

The man stopped. The muscles under Edward's hand twitched but he was not pulled forward. Under those muscles were bones, bones not unlike the bones of the dead. "At first I thought you liked… what I did. But now I know that I was wrong. I apologize." A sigh. "I hope I have made up for it some, but it is best that I am left in your debt. Easier for you, not to have to see me again."

Edward blinked, his cruelly biting desires of the past weeks becoming plain, the fulfillment of his frustration now bearing fruit in: rejection. But, rejection on false pretense, based on wrong data. "I liked it," he said, cutting to the core with hesitating conviction.

"Please don't pretend. It's… insulting."

Insulting? That was Edward's line. He had worked himself into sublime fury over Scar's supposed indifference, only to have it thrown in his face. "I mean it," Edward said, and underlined his sincerity by leaning forward, resting his forehead on Scar's back, feeling a pang as his cock pulsed with passion that demanded to be unleashed. Hollow laughter rose in his throat and was unwillingly released. "And here I was wanting to rape you all this time."

Edward winced as soon as the words were out. The word 'rape' didn't sound so good when said out loud, and he wanted to take it back. Too flip, too aggressive, and kind of mean.

The lantern was pulled out of his hand and set down with a clang as Scar turned around quickly. This flowing motion was followed by Scar placing both hands on his shoulders and forcing him to step backwards until his back clanged into one of the large marble columns that were the main support of the cathedral. "You are very strange," Scar whispered, his voice resonating with harsh and complex undertones. "I do not think I will ever understand you at all." Scar pressed his body against Edward's, overwhelming him with warmth and need, lips pressed to the top of Edward's head with weight like stone after an apparently aborted attempt at kissing him on the cheek.

"Let's stay a minute, after all," Edward whispered, pressing his cheek into Scar's chest and his left hand onto Scar's flank, stroking with burning friction through the other man's clothes, slow enough to make his fingers itch.

A minute. A few. Alphonse could spare him this, surely.

Scar was pressing his groin against Edward's, bending his knees to find the right place, which was hard because whenever he had it Edward slipped sideways against the rounded back of the marble column. This happened several times, and Edward felt himself grow hot even as the touch Scar wanted remained tantalizingly out of reach. Growling a bit, Scar put his hands under Edward's arms and lifted him up, spinning around. Before Edward knew it he was set down on the seat of a pew, brought up to a standing height slightly higher than Scar, looking down with wonder that had no time to become outraged. "Wha…?"

"Like this," Scar whispered, pulling Edward down so that _he_ was the one bending his knees, if only a little. The arms wrapped around his waist held him tight enough to create resistance, and understanding dawned as now he was able to grind his cock more comfortably against Scar's. The other man was easily as hard as he was. Edward wrapped his arms around Scar's shoulders and bent Scar's head forward, chin to chest, so that he could bury his face into white hair, fragrantly clean but also with the faint scent of the oils of the scalp, a scent as indescribable as it was instantly identifiable. The last time Edward had experienced anything like it was before Alphonse had become the armor, in those too-brief times of innocence when they used to sleep in bed together.

It was not like he'd ever done _this_ with Al, however. Edward moaned, the sound echoing accusingly through the massive structure of the cathedral. God, if he existed, was watching.

They rubbed their bodies together like this for a while, and it felt good, so good, even if insanely perverted. Sweat dripped from Edward's forehead and underarms, his whole body damp with desire and overheated in all of the clothes that were currently constraining him. Scar was sweating too, although not as much, his body apparently accustomed to higher levels of heat and ethnically less endowed with the kinds of glands that made people with skin as pale as Edward also more vulnerable to discomfort from all kinds of warmth.

But… it wasn't going to work. Not like this. After a bit, panting, Edward pulled back, pushing Scar from him gently even as he raised his hand to touch the cut he'd made so many weeks ago, feeling the increased heat from heightened blood flow as the man's skin worked, even now, to heal itself. Scar looked up at Edward, not flinching even though the wound was probably still smolderingly painful. Brown-red eyes met Edward's, and the stare that seemed fixing to beat him down was intense. Scar still kept his arms around Edward's body, holding him like he owned him, holding him up and bringing him close.

Scar was looking up at him, and Edward looking down. Edward touched the bones under the skin, marking a line from jaw to cheekbone and then up to the temples, over the forehead and between the eyes… the spot where the man's former scar used to cross. It had been an unusual scar, not like any normal wound-mark, too superficial and smooth and also too clearly demarcated. Alchemical, in fact. Exploring Scar's face caused the man to loosen his almost desperate hold on Edward's body, and eventually the Ishibalite stepped back and put his fingers under the front of Edward's waistband. "I could..." Scar started, looking down.

"Do it," Edward interrupted breathlessly.

Scar nodded, not looking up. "Hold on," the man whispered as he started to open the front of Edward's pants, with a bit more skill than he'd had the first time around. Not more practiced, obviously, but a bit more confident. "Hold on to me." Obediently Edward leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Scar's shoulders, lowering his head so that he could put his mouth on the other man's neck. Scar's muscles were so thick; it was like they were made to be bit. Edward opened his mouth and treated Scar to the saliva from his tongue as well as the encircling of his teeth, wanting to mark…

"Careful," Scar cautioned, even as he pulled out Edward's cock, handling it cautiously. "I can only cover up so much…" Damning the priests, the world, and all the gods who might be looking on, Edward retracted his teeth reluctantly and resorted to kissing instead, lips soft and needy. He couldn't even suck, then, which was totally unfair. Looking down, Edward decided to distract himself by watching what Scar was doing.

It turned out to be well worth watching. Edward panted as Scar gripped his penis between the fingers of his right hand, holding the palm of his left hand up in front of the cock as a kind of shield. Apparently there would be no coming all over Scar's street clothes. Scar's fingers, which were probably large enough to jerk off a cock the size of his forearm, were quite carefully arranged to give Edward the maximum sensation possible, thumb rubbing over the top of his penis and tugging the foreskin back and forth while the first two fingers squeezed along the length. The motions were all synchronised, so that Edward felt his cock pulled forward in a motion that was approximately like thrusting. Edward loosened his hips and helped, a low whine beginning at the back of his throat as he thrust forward in turn, wanting to tag something substantial and poke into something soft and giving. Why couldn't it be Scar's mouth down there, or…

Edward's eyes opened wide as it occurred to him. Fucking. _Real_ fucking. Men could do that. Had been, for fucking centuries.

The idea of conforming to historical precedent, coupled with the masturbating he was getting, was enough to make Edward spontaneously come. Sticky white semen shot out from his cock into Scar's palm, covering the wrist down to the fingers with glistening grossness. Edward gasped, collapsing forward and becoming totally relaxed as Scar's handjob motions slowed and finally stopped. Words… Edward wanted words. The first that flashed through his head were 'I love you,' but these he did not say, catching himself just in time before saying things he totally did not mean.

Because, he did not love Scar. Sure, he liked this. A lot. And also he was growing to like the man. But love him?

That was ridiculous. Very, very ridiculous. The only people Edward really, truly loved were Alphonse and Winry and Aunt Pinako. He had loved his mother, too, loved her with the full force of his idealism and youth. Maybe, maybe he also loved Sensei. But not anyone else, not really, and certainly… _certainly_… not Scar. Edward would not be at all surprised to find out that Scar didn't really love him either. So words of love were out, and would need to be stringently guarded against, because Edward felt his will to be quite weak just after orgasm. Still breathing hard, Edward searched for something, if not meaningful, at least something. "I… I…"

Scar pushed Edward back and into a standing position, steadying the boy's wobbliness by placing his right hand on Edward's shoulder. Scar then lifted his left hand to his mouth, and with his eyes meeting Edward's he started to lick his own wrist and the heel of his hand, cleaning up Edward's come without making a single face at the bitter taste. That was so sexy and hot that, even spent, Edward moaned. Transfixed.

One thing was certain, Edward didn't want to have to wait a whole month before this happened again.

Reaching forward with his automail arm, Edward cupped Scar's hand, first to support it and then to draw it forward. Sucking up come was degrading, and if Scar was going to do it then Edward would too. That was the sort of thing comrades did, and Scar was his friend now. Edward licked the rest of the semen off, not bothering to hide his own curled expression of distaste, and was rewarded with a return moan.

Oh yes. Scar must still be hard. "Do you like this?" Edward asked, deciding to let Scar dry off his now clean fingers by lifting the man's hand to his hair and encouraging him to wipe. This was not by-the-books penetrative sex, but it was dirty and perverse. It seemed a shame _not_ to call it sex, really. Edward leaned in, and daring much, put his tongue in Scar's ear.

"Yes, oh yes…"

Whatever it was, Edward adored it.

"I have an idea," he whispered, leaning back to mouth the words, before finishing his lingering lick. Edward then jumped down off the pew, short once more, and went to buttoning up his pants. Picking up the lantern he promptly extinguished it, and then grabbed his knapsack, arranging knapsack over his right shoulder and lantern in his right hand. "Let's go."

"Now?" Scar said, voice strained and heavy. Getting rid of the light meant that he could only judge Scar's body by the faintest flicker of violet-tinged light limning his form, faint from the far away candles. Edward could only guess the look that Scar must be wearing on his face.

"Yes, now," Edward said, reaching forward to rub his hand against Scar's belly, drawing a line from navel to cock, and then turning to walk out down the aisle towards the entrance of the church. He would make the other man follow him like a dog, and that would make Edward feel so sick and wrongfully perverted that maybe he'd get turned on and hard all over again.

In fact, he started to feel it, a little, the first sensation being a blush that just could not leave his body. Edward wanted to whistle as they passed by the madonnas and the crosses and the racks of glowing candles. He wanted to dance as they passed the pews and the stained-glass saints, looking down in black colorlessness without even starlight to give them life. He wanted to sing, as they stepped under the organ pipes that hung heavy over the back wall. Scar was following him and would not stop, would not leave him, would not go away never to see him again. It was triumph, like beating God, even though Edward didn't believe that God even existed.

Denial was sweet.


	6. Chapter 6

Most modern freedom is at root fear. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules; it is rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities.  
G.K. Chesterton

 

Edward was already deep in study when Scar arrived, ignoring his coffee in preference for the more delicious caffeine of cryptology. The time was around 11:30 am, and when Edward looked up it was with a smile, glad to see that Scar had brought books of his own. This would be the first time they'd met after that night in the cathedral, and Edward still felt awkward enough about it that he didn't really want to sit and talk to Scar without this kind of mutual shield. He reached out with his left hand imperiously. "Let me see."

Scar raised an eyebrow, and then handed over his books, three worn volumes along with a slim notebook. Totally expecting some boring religious treaties, Edward's eyes widened when he saw the actual titles. Euclid's _Elements_. Newton's _Principia_. Ambitiously, Archimedes' _On Plane Equilibriums_, the first volume. "Wow." Instinctively Edward started shuffling through _Principia_, looking for his favourite bits, wishing he had Sczieska's ability to memorize books wholesale. Wouldn't it be nice if he could write all this out for Alphonse?

After a minute Edward heard a cough, and when he looked up Scar was sitting across from him and staring at him steadily, hand outstretched with the palm up. Edward sighed and then returned the books, stroking the Archimedes longingly. He hadn't read that one yet. "Why are you studying math?"

Scar shrugged. "It's a part of the training. All novices, if they are capable, are supposed to learn useful skills, such as logic or rhetoric." He interrupted himself in order to place an order with the café maid, asking for his ubiquitous tea. "It's interesting, but difficult. I don't think I understand much, yet."

This caused Edward to nod tactfully, deciding not to mention that he'd found _Elements_ to be almost drearily basic. There were similar books in Amestris, all of them in the core alchemical canon, and although there were some odd differences, it seemed that logic was one of those things that crossed dimensions. "Where are you at?"

"Book four of the Elements. Last thing I looked at was something about straight lines fitting into a circle. Also, a lot of stuff about circles and triangles." Scar offered his notebook, showing his practice diagrams. Edward examined the man's writing, small meticulous figures, and remembered that Scar's brother had been a talented alchemist. It was easy to forget that Scar was actually intelligent underneath all of that business with faith and repentance. It seemed that Scar was understanding the main principles, at least of math, quite well. Edward looked up with a mischievous grin.

"You know what this looks like, right?"

Scar's gaze was level, and he frowned deeply. "It's not the same thing."

Edward took a sip of his coffee, relenting as he looked off into the distance. It was still strange drinking with his left hand, and Edward preferred to use the automail even for that. But out in public he didn't dare pretend that the automail was functional, so his right arm was arranged in ostentatious limpness. It sucked that there was a custom of greeting people with right-handed handshakes… without that one thing, Edward thought he might be able to risk pretending the arm was real. This did cause the ladies at the café to treat him with particular kindness, however, which was not such a bad thing. Edward didn't mind it when women fussed over him.

Scar opened his book, and after a bit Edward returned to his own, more complex work. He'd already made some pretty good progress with Melchior's texts, and Edward estimated that he'd have the whole group translated by the end of the week. With luck it would be less than a month before Edward had figured out all of them. This caused Edward to hum tunelessly, picking out the airs of a popular ballad that he'd been hearing a lot recently.

Several coffees and one hour later, Edward was still at it, but starting to feel antsy. He had all day and all night to work on these things, but Scar only had a few hours free every day, and although today was one of the "long days," Scar wouldn't have all day to sit around in leisure. It seemed ridiculous not to spend at least some time in actual conversation with the man, even though Edward had to admit that it was nice that Scar could be so comfortable and undemanding. With a small sigh Edward closed his books and looked over to what Scar was doing. "Need any help?"

Wrinkling his eyebrows together, Scar nodded, not looking up from his own book. A compass and ruler were holding his notebook open in front of him, and in Scar's left hand he held a pencil. "Are you good with hexagons?"

Was he? Edward almost scoffed. "What's your pleasure?"

Scar raised his eyes to that. "Equilateral and equiangular," he said, passing the Euclid over to Edward. "Like that."

Snatching compass, ruler, pencil, and notebook, Edward closed the textbook and drew one for Scar from scratch, arranging his automail arm so that it held down the edge of the paper against the wind, and getting Scar to hold the compass or ruler down at appropriate intervals. Normally this was something he could do instantly, but he explained the process in detail so it took longer. Scar leaned forward, placing his arms on the table as he listened intently. When Edward was done he handed the notebook back to Scar, conspicuously choosing not to proffer it with a flourish, a nice touch of restraint that he hoped Scar noticed. "Does that help?"

"It does," Scar said, but he didn't look down at the notebook, instead fixing his gaze on Edward. It was a measured, almost admiring look that Edward was beginning to become familiar with, and something about it caused Edward to return the gaze with the sensation of hunger rising in his throat.

"I want you to come with me," Edward said abruptly, standing up and clumsily digging for his money, for the millionth time cursing the need to maintain a façade of disability. He didn't know how much the bill would be, exactly, so Edward put down an amount that was probably at least twice what was owed. "Let's go." He gave Scar a glare when the man appeared ready to open his mouth in protest. "My treat. Don't argue, just help me with my things."

A faint rose color touched Scar's lips, which was just about the only evidence that Edward had that the man was flushing. With a sweeping motion Scar collected everything, picking up Edward's books along with his own and putting everything into Edward's knapsack, which he lugged onto his shoulder wordlessly. Well. Edward had only meant for Scar to help him quickly gather and arrange everything into his left arm, but that worked too. If Scar wasn't going to quibble over the money, Edward wasn't going to argue over who would fetch and carry.

Leading the way back to his flat, Edward walked at a double quick pace. Scar followed closely behind, his longer limbs allowing him to maintain a more relaxed stride, but it was still quicker than his usual deliberate amble. Edward didn't quite understand his own sudden urgency, but he didn't want to deny it either. It was like having to piss; when you had to do it, you just did.

Edward wondered if it would be possible to con someone like Winry to just drop everything the instant he wanted sex. A brief but vivid fantasy of Winry coming at him with a machine wrench seemed to suggest the true answer to such speculation. But Scar? Scar was a man. Scar would understand.

Never had getting someplace in record time seemed to take so long. All this picturesque beauty was highly aggravating because it came complete with illogically curvy roads and complex redoubling routes. Edward's aim for home was unerring, however, and when he finally sighted it there was much narrowing of the eyes in triumph. Winning the steps, Edward turned around to look at Scar before the man could join him there. He held up his left hand in the "halt" position. Scar looked puzzled but stopped obediently.

"Before proceeding any further, I need to warn you. There are cats." Edward took the opportunity of his little lecture to back himself up a few more steps, making himself temporarily the tallest one present. "Even though they are annoying, please refrain from killing them."

"I think I'll manage," Scar said dryly, but suddenly the man was looking around with an expression Edward had never seen before in that stern face. "Where are they?"

"Here and there," Edward shrugged. "Most of them are still kittens, so they hang out with their mom." Edward turned around to take the steps up to the flat, glad that Ilse wasn't around to ask any questions or, worse, leer at Scar in some kind of frightening pre-menopausal desire. That kind of thing reminded him too much of Izumi.

"Kittens?" Scar's voice sounded strange. Edward turned around and saw that Scar was rooted to the ground, looking up at him expectantly. This made Edward blink.

Scar liked cats. Who knew?

"Oh, screw that," Edward cursed, and turned back down the steps, tugging on Scar's arm forcefully. "Come on. You are not here to see kittens."

"A shame," Scar murmured, but the man did begin to follow Edward up the steps, and after a moment pulled his forearm back out of Edward's clutches so that he could grip Edward's hand instead, suffering himself to be led with no further commentary. At the top of the three flights Edward looked around shiftily, and when he decided that no one was watching he reached forward with his right hand and fished the keys out of his left hand pocket. Awkwardly Edward unlocked and opened the door with his automail, never relinquishing control of the hand Scar had given him.

"We're here," Edward announced. The far window was open and letting in bright afternoon sunlight, the light muslin curtains wafting fetchingly. Birdsong, a late morning aubade. Suddenly Edward was glad that the place looked clean, and nice, but he wondered why that should matter, or why he should care. It wasn't really home, after all. Edward kicked off his shoes and turned around to look at the man he had brought to the place he lived for sex.

Was Scar his lover now? Looking up into the strangely wine-colored eyes made Edward catch his breath, a pulse of desire intermingling with a shot of embarrassment over the question he'd just posed to himself. A lover would be someone he'd be proud to have sex with, or should be. But even though he wanted Scar, Edward did not want to have to admit to it. And, when the question of _why_ he wanted Scar bubbled to the surface, Edward had to restrain himself from grimacing, even as he reached forward to stroke the front of Scar's pants with his automail, his fingers feeling nothing but his chest aching heavily. It didn't make sense, and why was Edward initiating it?

Scar let go of Edward's hand and Edward expected the other man to draw him into a crushing embrace and take over. Instead Scar put his hands behind his own neck and closed his eyes, breathing deeply. At a bit of a loss Edward continued to play his metal fingers lightly over Scar's groin, wondering what property of the wiring made it so that he knew that folds of cloth and a penis were there. If it wasn't touch, what was it?

Edward wanted to be taken. This was the thought rising in his mind like bile, contaminating and confusing his desire. He didn't want to be the one to take, at least, not when Scar was involved. Maybe if it were Winry, or... someone else. Maybe it would be okay then. Edward felt his shoulders hunch and his breath grow ragged as he wanted to get closer, to be pressed and fucked and made to come.

"Get undressed," Edward commanded hoarsely, forcing himself to step back.

Scar opened his eyes slowly, looking at the ceiling. For a long moment he did nothing, but slowly he dropped his arms to the front of his trousers, unbuttoning them unhurriedly. Not once did he drop his gaze to look at Edward; he simply stripped.

Edward licked his lips as brown flesh was uncovered. The man was so tall, so muscular… so _male_. He wanted Scar to touch him, to undress him, to force him to use his mouth on that body. He wasn't so sure that he wanted to evaluate him like this, in a position of gifted power, twisted into being forced to articulate his desires. Which, when it came right down to it, were these: regardless of the intense shame he might feel if anyone important to him ever found out that he'd done Scar, Edward wanted it. And he'd fuck to get it.

Edward took off his gloves.

And yet… was it just shame? Edward remembered the earnestness with which Scar had paid attention to his descriptions of Euclidean principles, and his response then had been one of… happiness. It made him happy to see the admiration in Scar's eyes. He wanted that admiration, he wanted to be on that man's pedestal. Wanting Scar to want _him_ was not rooted only in craven, unworthy feelings of shame. It was also born out of some kind of reciprocity. Edward discovered, with a fierce twisting sensation, that he liked Scar. Liked him sincerely.

When Scar was completely naked, Edward pointed at the bed. "Over there," he whispered. "Go."

Scar looked at Edward then, projecting simple want with only the slightest bitter undercurrent of… sympathy. The taller man opened his mouth as if to say something, and Edward very much hoped that Scar would demand to fuck him. But nothing like that happened. Scar seemed to decide against saying anything and simply lay down on his back, taking up almost the entirety of the bed as he stretched out. Again the man looked at the ceiling, and again he closed his eyes.

Edward slowly undid the tie in his hair and shook out the braid. He then stepped over to the bed where Scar… where his lover… waited.

"Scar," he said, leaning over the bed so that he could place his hand on the other man's neck and kiss him somewhere just south of the collarbone. Edward's hair hung over his shoulders and about his face, and small pieces tickled Scar's skin. The kiss started off soft but soon became aggressive, and suddenly Edward felt his feelings shift. Shame became possessiveness. Edward used his tongue and sucked hard, breaking capillaries under the skin to leave a mark.

Something also seemed to change for Scar. As soon as Edward started to kiss his body the other man started to move, bringing up one leg and pulling Edward closer, demonstrating that he, too, was gripped in desire. Relief flooded Edward's mind, and it occurred to him that perhaps he'd been afraid that maybe Scar was ashamed to be with him too.

"Take off my clothes," Edward whispered.

Scar sat up while holding onto Edward, effectively pulling the alchemist onto the bed with him by catching him off-balance. Lying on his back in Scar's lap, hair splayed, caused Edward to gasp. That was more like it. Scar rubbed his palm hard over the top of Edward's chest, the buttons of his shirt digging in at the midline. The man's hand literally covered half of his chest, but when Scar started to work the buttons open with thumb and forefinger his dexterity was not challenged by the neatness of Edward's clothing. Edward could feel Scar's hard cock against the back of his head, and the look he gave the other man was both knowing and breathless.

With a flip of cotton Edward's chest was exposed, and Scar worked his fingers under the waistband of Edward's pants using his right hand. After a moment Edward's left hand joined Scar's, and together they touched Edward's penis, Scar concentrating on the shaft while Edward cupped his own balls. There was barely enough room in there, even though Edward's pants were loose fitting.

"Does this please you, Edward Elric?"

Edward nodded mutely, arching his head backwards over Scar's thigh. Scar leaned forward and opened the front of Edward's pants with his free hand, and then pulled it back to touch Edward's hair. Edward could smell the soap he used to wash his hair as Scar smoothed it back from his forehead, a clean smell intermingled with the odor of man.

Hazily, Edward looked up and fetched Scar's attention with a moan. This was what he wanted. But he also wanted more. Something new, something different. "Use your mouth," he whispered, and Edward could not tell if that came off more like a request or a command.

Scar stiffened. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

Scar stopped moving his hand and looked off into the distance. Edward squirmed, wondering if he'd made a mistake. Was that too much, too outrageous? Would Scar find him sick for asking that? Was it sick? If his lover had been a woman Edward would have known what to do, he thought, but the logistics of sex with a man were hazy to him. How could he be expected to know what was allowed and what was forbidden? Edward offered a shaky grin, prepared to beg off with a laugh, pretending it was a joke.

Scar looked down and noticed the grin/grimace, and frowned. "What is the matter?"

"It was just an idea," Edward said, grin fading. "You don't have to. I guess it's kind of weird."

The other man widened his eyes, and in response he flipped Edward out of his lap, spilling him onto the mattress as he sat up on his knees. As soon as Edward was down Scar turned him over and began to roughly kiss the skin of Edward's belly as he helped Edward out of his pants. At first Edward thought the kisses were mocking and his whole body shook, but after a minute or so of this Edward realized that the lips and teeth nipping his skin revealed nothing more ulterior than passion. Scar's mouth was hot on the inside, and slowly, slowly Scar's kisses moved down his body to where Edward's hard cock waited.

Edward looked down and became paralyzed by what he saw. The idea of what it would feel like to have Scar fellate him had been totally sensual when it first occurred to him, but the only thing he'd really imagined was how it would feel. What it would look like, having another man's head over his groin, what _seeing_ that would feel like, was something he'd been completely unable to prepare for. It was strange and somehow very sexy. Powerful, like the rush of alchemy. That pang of possessiveness returned, stronger than before. He absolutely owned Scar at this moment, owned him and ruled him. Edward moaned loudly, careless of the noise.

The problem, Edward decided, was in seeing Scar as a static entity instead of as a shifting target. Or maybe the problem was in himself, for making the mistake of having narrow expectations. Did shame matter? Did power? The only thing that really seemed significant was that this felt good, damned good. Edward reached down and ran his fingers through Scar's short hair, using him roughly even as the other man ran his tongue over Edward's cock with surprising delicacy.

Stripes of warmth and wetness, the broad lick of Scar's tongue seemed to invigorate Edward's entire body. Edward wondered what it tasted like, what that thin flesh felt like as it moved over the hardness coalescing underneath. In a smooth but perhaps hesitant moment, Scar placed his mouth over the head of Edward's penis, pushing back the foreskin with his lips while licking the tip with his tongue, tucked inside the other man's mouth.

"Fuck," Edward breathed. "_Shit_."

Nothing was like this, nothing. Edward thrust forward, wanting to fill Scar's mouth, wanting to find the back of the other man's throat and make him gag. Not an easy task because everything about Scar was oversized, including the inside of his mouth. Edward's cock, nicely proportionate to his own body, was not exactly mortifyingly small. But still it was a stretch, and Edward had to strain. In the end he held Scar so roughly by the hair that the other man grunted in discomfort, but Edward held Scar firmly in place and kept him there until he came.

It was everything Edward could do to keep himself from hyperventilating into a faint, but breathing as hard as he was caused Edward to feel a tingling pressure in the back of his brain and behind his eyes, and he just _knew_ that he was fucking with his body chemistry in some really narcotic ways. He'd done it that way before when he masturbated, so he knew that this was just the way his body chose to try to hold onto the moment. But never had he clung so desperately to a climax, never had he wanted to force himself so hard into extreme pleasure. Even if he had to pass out, prolonging this feeling for a few seconds would be worth it.

Those seconds passed, however. They had to. Time caught up with Edward and he blinked as the moment shifted from present into memory. Everything that was real rushed in to claim him, and suddenly Edward remembered that he was naked and in bed with Scar, and that Scar was his lover now even though that was something he didn't fully understand. Keeping Scar as a lover was a kind of responsibility, and Edward swallowed hard as he thought about what he felt he needed to offer next.

For the moment all was calm. Edward loosened his hold on Scar's hair and beckoned for the other man to lie down next to him, holding out his arms to invite an embrace. This Scar did, eagerly, crushing Edward's body against his own and tucking Edward's head underneath his chin. Scar's erection was quite obvious against Edward's spent cock, which was now hypersensitive and even a bit uncomfortable. But overall this felt good. Edward sighed, and kissed Scar's warm and slightly clammy chest, chilled with the sweat drying off his lover's body. Edward would take a minute, or two, just to enjoy this completely non-desperate moment. Something about being held like this was even better than the orgasm that had proceeded it, giving Edward a sort of relaxation that felt almost spiritual. Edward didn't need to venerate any gods to enjoy it, the sex and the being held melding into one inseparable experience.

Eventually, Edward shifted. "Scar…" he began, a tiny whisper accompanied by an appreciative kiss.

"Yes, Edward Elric?"

Wondering if there would ever be a moment when Scar dropped his allegiance to formalities, Edward paused. How could he best offer himself to Scar? How could he let the other man know that his body could be used? He wondered if Scar would be burdened with any hesitations, and wanted to let him know that he would return the favour of not considering Scar sick, no matter what he wanted to do.

No matter what. Edward thought about what Scar very well could be wanting, and took a deep breath. "Ummm…"

Feeling himself starting to shake, Edward cursed his weakness. In the past his body had suffered pain, of the countless and seemingly endless variety. In comparison to losing an arm, or a leg, or being speared through the heart, allowing one man to fuck him should have seemed like nothing. But there was something uniquely perverse in offering up his body like this. It should be a pleasure, but it would be one he was afraid he could not share. It frightened him to think that he could hate it, especially after Scar had humbled himself to the point of prostrating himself before Edward's cock. It seemed grossly unfair, and Edward despised little more than judging himself to be unfair.

Scar made a noise, perhaps a sigh, and began to stroke Edward's hair. The other man would ask for nothing. Edward knew it. He would only take what was offered and nothing more. So if Edward didn't do or say anything, then Scar would end up leaving unsatisfied-- which might be fine, except it would end up leaving Edward feeling like the biggest shit. So Edward swallowed… his pride, his fears… everything. He had to do this. "Scar… you can… if you want…"

He found himself cut off. "Make no mistake, Edward Elric. I intend to do to you just as you did to me," Scar whispered. "The very same."

Suddenly Edward felt himself shaking even more. That was an outrageously generous thing to say, and it made him feel even more weak and ridiculous. Scar must have known that he was afraid of being fucked, must have figured it out and decided to save face for Edward by pretending it was something he didn't even want in the first place. "Of course you can," Edward answered huskily. "I will. But… isn't there… don't you want more?"

There was a pause. "I don't want more than what your body can take," Scar answered softly, voice betraying only a little strain, but enough to betray the lie. It was a kind lie, though. Edward didn't even have the heart to find it humiliating, and resumed his kisses meekly, wondering if he could ever find a way to pay Scar back for this. But then a new thought occurred to him, and he realized he didn't have to.

Scar's body was best mapped in terms of territories, at least as far as kissing was concerned. "Have you…" Edward began, disengaging himself from Scar's embrace and forcing the man on his back, sitting up with a toss of hair, "…ever heard of," Edward dipped down, and took one of Scar's nipples in between his teeth for a gentle bite. "… Empiricism?"

"Nnooo…" was Scar's drawn out, intensely felt reply. The man actually squirmed.

Success. Edward nodded to himself, and began to lick at the nipple gently, glad that his experiment was not failing. "It's a kind of proof," Edward explained through studied kisses. "Proving through experience that something works." Face parallel to Scar's body, Edward fixed his gaze upwards, using the muscles of his eyes instead of the muscles of his neck to look at his lover. "…or doesn't." Scar's head was thrown back, the muscles of the other man's neck jutting in stark relief. Muscles Edward could name, if he wanted… after all that study of bioalchemy, he couldn't help but pick up a few things like that.

Empiricism was the opposite of faith. It was belief founded in reality, a system of thought built out of investigation. But it was also a way to learn. How could Edward learn how to make up for his fears unless he put them to the test? Maybe it was true that Scar's cock would be too big for his body. But men bigger than Scar had been raping little boys for generations. If that was possible, then why not this? Possibly he could even enjoy it. Edward hummed a little, that sense of possessiveness returning along with his self control. Scientists did not balk from the unknown, even if people of faith did. If the idea of being fucked in the ass was so sexy, perhaps the reality would be as well.

Scar had kissed his belly, and that had felt good. Edward stretched, rolling his shoulders and cracking his knuckles out in front of him, fingers intertwined. He'd have to try that first.

"Edward…. Elric…"

Edward raised an eyebrow, then bit into the ridge of the rectus muscle, eliciting a garbled groan. Slowly, slowly Scar was uncoupling his first name from his last. With any luck Edward would make Scar forget that he had a last name, or any name at all. Maybe it was shameful, but Edward would make this man his, and own him even while being fucked. To do that, Edward would have to maintain control even as he shredded every last ounce of his lover's restraint.

Parting Scar's legs, Edward touched them carefully, using the outside of his left index finger to caress the skin, then brushing his cool automail over any bit that felt particularly warm. It was totally teasing, and Scar was completely erect. Edward examined Scar's penis, and decided there were some advantages to circumcision, as preposterous as that might sound. The main one was that the head of Scar's penis was right out there, visible without having to use fingers or lips to push back any foreskin. This made it possible for Edward to stiffen his tongue and apply it gently to the slit at the end.

Scar went to claw for Edward's head, wanting apparently to hold him in place just as Edward had earlier. But Edward was on the lookout for that and shifted away swiftly, rolling off the bed and standing up. The look on Scar's face was priceless: confusion combined with sticky desire and prickly pre-fury. Before Scar could get really mad, however, Edward was back in there, leaning over Scar's groin after clamping Scar's hands down to his sides. "I'm going to show you," Edward whispered. "We can do this. _You_ can do this."

"Do… what?"

"You're going to fuck me," Edward whispered. "I'm telling you, so you will."

"How did you get to be so… damned… audacious?" Scar snarled helplessly, not really fighting against the way Edward was holding him down as his cock was teased with tongue and lips.

"Scar!" Edward looked up, eyes shining. "You _swore_." Power, yes, was very addicting. He could play with Scar like this until the man ejaculated in his eyes, but that wasn't really the plan.

In fact, that was so far from the plan that Edward paused, grossing himself out over the thought of having a come-covered face. Clearly it was time to focus. "I want you to fuck me," Edward said, using his deepest and (he hoped) most sexy voice. "I'm sure you can figure out how."

With that, Edward let go of Scar's hands and held his own up, ostentatious in his defenselessness. Edward backed himself up off the bed and stood up straight, keeping his arms in the air in an attitude of arrest, although the coy smile on his lips belied any possible impression of helplessness such a pose might otherwise convey. Scar was lying there, naked and hard, his long limbs splayed and his blunt fingers clutching at the sheets. Scar shook his head no, the look in his eyes pleading for Edward to come back, to finish what he'd started.

Edward leaned forward and mouthed yes, mockingly, before turning around so that Scar could see only Edward's back and the gaze leveled at him from over an automail shoulder. "Are you coming?" Edward asked, softly, cutting his lover with double entendre and innuendo as if it were his birthright. Edward dropped his arms, but not his eyes, staring at Scar acutely.

The bed groaned as Scar stood up, and in moments Edward was pulled into a sinuous and desperate embrace, Scar holding him from behind and leaning down to kiss Edward's neck as at the same time he lifted Edward to his toes by cupping his fingers around the front of Edward's crotch and pressing hard, forcing the boy to stand higher or be crushed. Edward leaned back, leaned and offered all his weight. Against Scar's body he felt so light. The man was absolutely immoveable by conventional means, and Edward knew that it would be impossible to fall while being held so intimately.

Scar certainly was an excellent groper. Despite the intention to stay aloof, Edward found himself drawn in, desire licking him as effectively as Scar's tongue. Scar's cock was pressing into his rear, fitting into the depression between his buttocks. Edward wiggled his hips and clenched, squeezing the leading edge of the shaft of Scar's penis.

"Edward…"

Placing his hands over the crest of the iliac bones winging at the front of Edward's hips, Scar firmly rubbed his cock and balls into the soft rounded flesh of Edward's ass. A pang, a groan; maybe Edward wanted this after all. Pivoting Edward's smaller body with an easy shove, Scar turned Edward around and pushed him down into the bed. Although it was freefall, Edward was prevented… but only by inches… from landing face-first by the firm grip Scar had on his automail.

"… Elric."

Damn. Edward clutched at the sheets, considered biting them. "Call me Edward," he growled. "Just that."

He could not see Scar's face, could not guess what the man was thinking as he looked down on him as he lay prone. What was Scar doing, retreating into a fugue or something? How much thoughtfulness was really necessary, any the fuck way? When Scar eventually lowered himself down over Edward's body, it was all the boy could do to keep himself from spitting out "_finally_," which would have revealed just a little too much about his own difficulties with patience.

"Edward," Scar whispered into his ear, and the breath of air tickled deliciously. It was as if Scar was tasting the name, savoring it as if he'd never said it before. With Scar's accent the name almost sounded Persian, spicy and thick and quite different from how the Germans tended to pronounce it. Just now Scar's accent was quite strong.

Tangling one hand into Edward's slip-prone silica hair, Scar twisted it into a loose skein around his fingers. This was apparently to move it out of the way, because soon Edward was being kissed softly in the square depression on the back of his neck, bounded by skull and tendons and with spine in the deep. Lips touching not just skin, but everything underneath, pressing into Edward's body roughly along with glancing lashes of a searching tongue. Scar's body was heavy and warm, and even though most of the other man's weight was distributed onto his various limbs Edward mmmed as Scar eclipsed Edward's slim pelvis with the entire weight of his own.

In this land of Germany lived the remnants of a perpetual gloom, the memory of forests more vast and thick than any other on the continent. Stories of that heaviness had made little impression on Edward's farm-born mind, but now with the weight of man pressing into him like the darkness of years past, Edward gasped, and a little part of his mind clicked into understanding. Scar covered his body like dusk, shadowing him with a palpable lust. Already with summer Edward's body was hot, but Scar's body stifled him further, exiling him to a feverish desert, his thirst for touch unquenched.

The hand holding Edward's hair back, Scar's right, disengaged and dropped the hair back to Edward's skin, causing it to cling to the sheen of sweat beginning to slick Edward's body. Scar moved his arm and fingers down Edward's flank, shifting most of his own weight onto his left side. Edward remembered the tattoos that used to adorn that arm, arcane markings of the highest and most taboo form of alchemy. Beautiful markings, concealing power lifted from the attempted genocide of Scar's own people. Power that had been given, first to Edward's brother, and then through Alphonse to Edward himself. The tattoos were gone but the gift was not, and Edward breathed heavily as he remembered that the price of his own life was the destruction of half a race of people as well of that of nine hundred of the culprits. Lives that Scar had mastered and for which the man considered his soul damned.

With his fingers Scar explored the smoothness of Edward's bottom, gently touching the youthful curves. Edward was fully aware that his body was one in full ripeness, fresh despite its brokenness. Scar, on the other hand, was like a blown rose, strong and loose with the blowsy aroma of a man fully realized, grown into full individuality and yet somewhat at a precipice. Just before decay and death a body possessed fey beauty, sometimes for a season and sometimes for years. Scar had this kind of charm, this sort of attraction, because the weight of his body was like the weight of age, the weight of legends, the weight of endless gloom on which the sun yet dared to shine.

"I believe this will hurt you, Edward Elr… Edward." Scar's voice was hushed, strained. He must have wanted it, wanted it at the very limit of what he thought was right. At least he did not ask if Edward was sure, because if he did Edward might have had to clobber the man with his automail arm until something was broken and several things bled. The lack of any questioning flushed Edward's mind with triumph and filled him with maliciously sexy goodwill. Was it cruel that he wanted Scar to use him, when he knew that Scar would feel guilty about it before, during, and after?

Perhaps. "Prove it," Edward whispered.

Fingers without any particular skill dipped into the crevice between Edward's buttocks, starting up high at the tail bone and plumbing the natal line down until he found the entrance of Edward's anus, testing and probing until sure that this was the right spot. Scar's touch was both artless and naked, revealing much about the man's own lack of experience in this realm, and yet outside the obvious clumsiness was a larger confidence that left Edward breathless. There was no doubt now that Edward would be fucked.

There was little preamble after that. Slowly, carefully Scar helped his penis into the vault of Edward's rectum by holding it steady with his fingers as he advanced.

Edward closed his eyes tight and clenched his teeth so hard that he thought that the back molars would crack. Every muscle in his body tensed and Edward pounded the mattress, once, with an automail fist. _Fuck_. It was the _same_ pain. Tears rose in Edward's eyes. It was the same as getting an artificial body part, the same electricity, the same shock, the same _fucking_ same.

Tending to his pain, Edward barely noticed when Scar began to thrust, first hesitantly and then with evolving force. Biting his lower lip, Edward endured. He had asked for this, this was the one thing his shock-focused mind remembered. It was not pleasant, not even slightly, but this was proof and it was real. Proof that bit, proof that probed, proof that bled. The _same_.

Pain that equaled truth. Truth that equaled pain. How could Edward have expected anything different?

_I'm alive_, Edward hissed in his own mind. _Only being alive could hurt like this_. Somehow that was a comforting thought.

Scar took Edward with animal ferocity, letting loose gradually but completely. Edward could tell the exact moment when his lover came, because Scar's body suddenly spasmed upwards and there was a release, a marvelous release as the hardness lodged in his ass became quiescent and normal. The ebb of pain was almost like a shadow orgasm. Edward felt Scar slowly disengage, felt his body gently turned over and then picked up, adjusted so that he was lying down the right way in bed. His eyes were closed, and he kept them closed because he knew that tears were hidden away in the corners and it was too early to open them if he didn't want to be betrayed by tears tracking down his cheeks.

Outsized fingers searched him and found him out, however, when Scar placed the edge of his thumb against the corner of Edward's eye, picking up an unshed tear. The unasked question was very loud: _are you okay_? It was a question Edward wasn't quite sure of the answer to as he drifted back into himself, immediate pain replaced with an ache that was more complicated than mere soreness and hurt. Scar's body was not on the bed, so the man must have been kneeling at the edge of it so that he could carefully touch Edward's face without disturbing any of the rest of his body.

When he was ready, Edward opened his eyes. The look on Scar's face was not apologetic, not fearful or hopeful, but it wore a look of faintly ragged concern and complete, complete attention.

This was, then, Edward's proof. Edward wondered with a slight pang of self-recrimination if he would ever learn. Had his curiosity every bought him anything other than pain? The body, _this_ body, was simply too frail to handle the demands he made of it. One arm gone, one leg destroyed, and now a fire in his belly as his gut gurgled uncomfortably with the referred insult. His eyes grazed Scar's body slowly, scanning from head to chest to shoulder and then, inescapably, to the miraculously new and non-cursed arm. The fingers from that arm were the ones that touched him, brushing the side of his face and his neck as if sweeping off dust. "Well," Edward whispered. That was…

"I will not allow you to talk me into that again, Edward Elric," Scar cut him off. The man's tone was severe but his eyes were gentle, as gentle as the velvet of a red and dying rose.

"Wasn't it good?" Edward replied in a tiny voice, feeling a sort of sick mortification catching in his throat. After all that, and still his sacrifices were worthy of nothing but rejection? It was humiliating, awful, to think that he'd taken that pain only for Scar to find him not good enough. Edward inhaled, wanting to light the embers of outrage that always simmered in his heart, wanting to burn because it felt better than this creeping coldness.

Scar stared. "Good?" The fingers on the side of Edward's face dug into the flesh painfully. "What are you talking about?"

"Didn't you like it?"

Before he knew it Edward was being kissed on his cheek. This was the closest Scar had ever come to kissing his lips. "Yes," was the answer. "But…"

This wiped Edward's fears effectively as he figured out exactly what was going on. Relief squeezed his heart until it fluttered. "I'm glad." Edward hefted his automail arm, disinhibiting the restraints on his deep brain structures through some mysterious neurologic process that allowed his metal fingers to run through Scar's hair, petting the other man's head without even seeing what his arm was doing. The arm Winry had made for him, miraculous in its own way. How had he allowed himself to forget just how wonderful it was? Something like the memory of touch echoed through the wires.

"Your pain is something I don't want to see," Scar whispered. "Ever again." Scar's lips left Edward's cheek when he spoke, but then pressed again into Edward's skin. Edward could feel it against the edge of his teeth, through the flesh, and a part of him wanted badly to turn his face so that those lips could touch his own.

"Don't be so melodramatic," Edward said with a tremulous smile. "That was nothing." Edward did turn, then, but only so that he could pull back and look Scar in the eyes. "I'd like to fuck you like that."

"Oh." Scar looked at him and flushed, becoming so warm that even his cheeks went pink, and Edward stilled his face into amused blankness as he realized that his shot told. Obviously Scar wanted that too. "Do you think… you… can?"

Hmm. Edward felt himself flush in turn as he realized what Scar was implying, and considered the mechanics. "Maybe," he whispered but suddenly his tone was doubtful and frankly boyish. "You are rather big," he confessed. "And I…" Edward's voice trailed off as he realized that he had come fatally close to the most taboo topic of his life. "I'm so…" How could he catch a save? What was Edward, really, other than small? Like a bean? "Um…"

There was a long pause, and Edward tried not to blink as his mind scrambled for the best evasive maneuver, the most effective verbal parry. Edward really, really didn't want to have to have his hackles rise in defense of his own honor this soon after sex. He felt the muscles of his face screw into academic thoughtfulness.

"…Specialized?" Scar suggested, giving him a look completely stripped of irony or sarcasm.

Edward relaxed, feeling a strange surge of total comfort. "Yes. Yes, that's exactly it."


	7. Chapter 7

We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. But is it crazy enough?  
Niels Bohr

 

On the long day, Scar had all the time until early evening before he had to return. So Edward lay with Scar, relaxing for some time. They bathed, separately, and then lounged until Edward felt horny again. Then they had some more sex.

The post-coital thing, that was really something. And after multiple orgasms it seemed that the effect was additive. So now when Edward laid on top of Scar's body, he was fighting the strongest urge he'd ever felt to nap, nap even though he wasn't really that tired. This had to be an after-effect of all the hormones that had been secreted into his blood, some kind of barely receptive lethargy that felt both wonderful and maddening. Wonderful, because it would be soooo nice to sleep like this. Maddening, because he couldn't; if he fell asleep then Scar might too, and it seemed to Edward that part of his responsibility, as both a lover and as a comrade, was to make sure that Scar didn't get in trouble because of him.

So, then. Talk. Talk would keep them awake. Edward was curled on one side on Scar's chest, straddling the other man's belly and twisting his spine at the waist so that he could finger the practically hairless skin of the man's chest. Well, sure, Scar had hair… but it was baby-fine and almost impossible to see unless looking from up close. That must be one of those ethnic traits of the people of Ishibal. Even Edward had more hair, although not very much more… maybe it was half a millimeter longer? For the Elrics, at least, any robust ethnic tendency to body hair was neatly countered by a more specific genetic legacy (from his mother's side) of natural fairness and a fineness, almost androgyny of form. Shaving was something that neither Edward nor Scar needed to worry much about.

"Hey…" Edward whispered, covertly drawing alchemical circles since Scar wasn't looking. "Hey."

"Yes, Edward Elr… Edward?"

Edward kissed Scar's chest as the man fumbled his name, finding it kind of endearing. "Have you ever been in love?"

Scar, who had been stroking Edward's hair, stopped suddenly. Slowly Edward was coming to see the man's pauses as a kind of animal response, the shock of a predatorial creature suddenly confronted with an unexpected new object or thought. So Edward waited, allowing the man to collect his thoughts, wondering what he would say. It did not occur to him wonder if Scar thought he was asking if the man were in love with _him_, because he completely wasn't, and therefore no flush of embarrassment touched him. "…Yes," was the final, considered response.

Edward nodded, rewarding Scar's answer with another kiss. "Who was it?"

"I'm not sure I want to talk about it," Scar said. An unacceptable response; Edward turned his head to gently bite Scar's nipple, using just the faintest pressure from his incisors as a kind of friendly threat. The man needed to talk about it; there would be no sleeping allowed.

"Tell me," Edward whispered. "It's okay. I probably don't know her anyway."

Sighing, Scar did not resume petting Edward's hair. "But you do. Or, did. Well…. sort of…"

Edward sat up, shifting his groin so that he could sit on Scar's chest and look into the man's eyes. "I knew it!" Edward replied, not able to restrain a bit of gloating. "You loved Lust, didn't you?"

"Not her," Scar said with a negating shake of his head, closing his eyes against Edward's penetrating smile. "… who she used to be, though… yes."

"She was your brother's woman." Edward raised an eyebrow, and then moved to kiss Scar's neck. "You're pretty bad, do you know that?" Edward was finding it a bit hard to criticize, however, because he was so distracted by the deliciously even coloring of Scar's skin, so much better than any tan. "That's just… awful." His lips and tone, Edward hoped, were reassuring, even though he was finding it a bit fun to tease the man out of his congenital seriousness.

"I knew her first," Scar said, sounding defensive.

Finding a red mark where he had kissed Scar earlier, Edward went back in for a repeat performance at the same site. "Knew her… in what capacity?"

Scar frowned and didn't answer right away. Edward licked Scar's skin, laughing a little in triumphant delight. He was so good at this. It was probably criminal that Edward could be so right all the time, going directly for the hard questions that would leave Scar squirming. Just as he was doing right now.

"Come on," Edward urged. "I won't laugh," he said, although he was not really sure that he'd be able to hold back if the answer was too silly. How bad could it be, though? A woman was a woman. Knowing one was not any kind of crime, right?

Well, unless she'd been a prostitute… Edward bit his lip. Oh, god, if that were the case… he would not be able to restrain himself.

"She was my teacher," Scar said finally, his tone so uptight and formal that Edward knew that he really couldn't laugh, not unless he wanted to be hit. Apparently this was as sensitive an issue as… well, Edward's height (or lack thereof). Edward took a deep, calming breath.

"How old were you?" Edward asked, deciding to be curious and interested despite Scar's clear reluctance to talk about it.

"Twelve." Scar sounded sullen.

Aw… Edward felt all humor melt away, replaced with a kind of helpless pity and a burst of sudden affection. Probably she'd been like some kind of mother figure for him. That wasn't the kind of thing to make fun of, not even in his mind. It wasn't right. "How much older was your brother, anyway?"

"Thirteen years," Scar said, reluctantly, but a little less wounded-sounding as Edward's questioning shifted into softer tones.

"That's a pretty big difference," Edward said gently. That much, and it probably was like not having much of a brother at all, but rather a kind of quasi-parent. A tough position; if Scar's mother had actually lived long enough to raise him, it was questionable whether he'd have even known his brother that well. People in their twenties tended to be less interested in family and more interested in finding themselves, unless there was something wrong that forced them to take responsibility.

Like having no mother. "He never blamed you, I hope?"

"Never," Scar's voice was vehement. "He was a good brother."

Yes. Edward supposed he'd had to have been. "But still, he fell in love with your teacher." That must have hurt and felt a lot like betrayal, especially to someone so young. Edward closed his eyes. Sometimes, sometimes he enjoyed being right. But that often meant that he was good at guessing the unspoken words, and that gave him more sorrow sometimes than he really knew what to do with. So sometimes he hated it. "What was she like?"

"Wonderful," Scar whispered. "The kindest person I have ever known."

Edward kissed Scar on the cheek, a soft kiss with no tongue. "I'm sorry she died," Edward said, meaning it thoroughly. That was clearly the event that set Scar on his tragic course for vengeance. Not just because of his brother's actions, but because of his own sorrows. It would have been like… well, like losing a mother twice.

"Who's yours?" Scar asked, turning his head but not rejecting the lips on his face. "Who do you love?"

"I don't know," Edward said honestly, pushing the hair out his eyes as he considered the question. "I used to think it was Winry, and probably it still is… but I'm not sure."

"Who's that?"

"A girl I grew up with." Edward sat up and flexed his automail arm. "She made this." Taking his left fist, he knocked his metal shin. "And this."

"Is she pretty?"

Edward nodded, and made a face. "Too pretty. She knows it, too. Totally insufferable." Scar reached to stroke Edward's cock, and Edward arched his spine backward in pleased vindication. "That's nice, keep doing that."

"What does she look like?" Scar's question was idle and calm; now that the spotlight was off him and his quasi-pathetic, quasi-tragic juvenile love affair, he was looking up at Edward with some pleasure, one arm under his head to prop it up.

"Hmm… her hair is blonde, but lighter than mine… long. And she has blue eyes."

"A kind of girl version of you, then?"

"What?!" Edward stopped luxuriating in what Scar was doing long enough to give the man a deadly look of warning. "I said _blue_ eyes."

"Totally different." Scar smiled up at him, and Edward was a bit surprised to see that the man was not immune to doing a little teasing himself. "I see."

"I don't think she's as pretty as Lust, though," Edward admitted, deciding to get a little of his own back. "Lust had a kind of… aura. A sexy aura." Sliding his ass back off Scar's ribs and onto the soft part of belly, Edward moved back in to lean over Scar, allowing his hair to curtain the man's face.

"It's not right to speak of the dead like that," Scar said, but his breathing was a bit deeper. Edward leaned in close enough so that he could feel the air leaving the man's mouth.

"You really did love her, didn't you?" Edward whispered, remembering the last time he saw the homunculus and how she had helped him fight his dead mother... Sloth. Hadn't she said, in the last words that he could recall, that she even had memories of being a woman of Ishibal? Edward decided that telling Scar this would be far too cruel. What good had it done him to learn that Sloth was able to remember little bits of her past as his mother, after all, other then to open up another avenue of deep guilt to explore? "I am sure she was worth it."

"Yes." Scar's breath mixed with his own, his very life in the word. "Yes."

"Winry is actually beautiful," Edward whispered, moving to kiss Scar's… forehead. He thought about going for the lips, but at the last minute lost his courage. "Very beautiful. Don't ever, ever tell her I told you that, though."

Scar nodded, accepting the chaste kiss by reaching up to finger Edward's throat. "Does she know about Alphonse?"

"Does she?" Edward's tone was very, very soft. "Sometimes I think she it the only person, other then myself, who really knows what living in the armor is-- or was-- like for him." He smiled sadly. "Alphonse was always in love with her, from the earliest I could remember."

"Oh really?"

He nodded. "We used to get into fights about who would get to marry her, when I was six or so. But it turns out she didn't want to marry either of us. What a loss for her, eh? Too… mmm, immature. _She_ said, anyway."

"I'm sure she was not so mature, herself." Scar agreed easily, touching one side of Edward's voice box, and then the other, touching the bumpy cartilage as Edward felt himself assaulted with a need to swallow.

"Absolutely not. Mechanics are not made to understand the workings of scientists, anyway."

"And vice versa?"

"We understand the workings. We even understand the motives… Alphonse and I." Edward sighed a little, and Scar stroked him, finger going down his chest to his cock. The feeling was delicious. "We just never could understand the _drive_."

"I think she loved you," Scar said, smiling with a look a bit sad. "I think she loved both of you. Probably she just could not choose."

"Maybe." Edward nodded, and then moved down so that he could play again with Scar's cock with his mouth. "Maybe."

 

 

It turned out that the kittens never made an appearance in the bedroom. With lazy obedience to the passing of the hours, Scar eventually got himself dressed. Edward watched from the bed, and only when every scrap of clothing was in place, did he get up to do the same. The whole process took some time, and it was a good quarter hour later before the two men were on their way out the door. Victim of a nap deferred, Edward yawned a little as he walked Scar down the outside stairs.

And there was Ilse, stomping down the walk, carrying a small bag of groceries and cursing prolifically.

Edward pointed her out. "Look, there's a blonde woman. Do you think that makes her look like me?"

"All you yellow-haired people look alike to me," Scar said, with a small shrug, but the tiny hint of a smile on his face prevented Edward from snorting out a protest.

"Edward!" Ilse called out, clearly ready to ask him to grab the groceries, when she saw Scar standing there. She looked up, gaping. "Damn, you're tall." Her attention shifted to Edward, never one to stand on ceremony. "Is this your Catholic?"

"I'm afraid so," Edward replied, stepping forward to take the groceries without even being asked, using his left hand to take the bag by the handle. He didn't mind helping out when Ilse forgot to browbeat him into it. "He loves kittens, too."

Thumbing her chin, Ilse stepped up to Scar and look him up and down carefully as Edward moved to take the groceries inside. "You're properly set up, not like the runt over there," she said loudly, leaning to make sure that her offhand remark was heard loud and wide. "It's a shame you're religious."

"Runt?" was the last thing the alchemist heard Scar say. Edward slammed the door behind him, plunking everything down in Ilse's kitchen, and moving quickly to go back outside and tell off that old shrew with some really good insults he'd stored up for just such an occasion. However, on his way out he became distracted by a pile of kittens sitting near the fireplace.

So that's where they were. The mama cat was dozing underneath them all. It was… an infestation of cuteness.

"Come here, you," Edward said, picking up the Al kitten by the scruff of its neck, waking up everyone as he took the squirming bundle outside. "Look," he said, waving the kitten at Scar as if showing off a prize fish he'd just caught.

Scar didn't say anything, but his eyes became suspiciously soft and shining as he held out his palms. "Take him," Edward instructed, showing off the flap of skin at the neck. "And hold on tight. I don't want him to run off."

"Are you looking for a cat of your own?" Ilse asked, all potentially flirtatious behavior replaced with that of a shrewd kitten-giver-awayer.

Scar didn't answer, instead holding the little bundle of fur up near his face and examining it carefully, doing exactly as Edward had instructed except he was also supporting the kitten by its bottom. "Does he have name?"

"No," Ilse said, at the same time that Edward said "yes." They looked at each other, and then reversed their answers, contradicting one another again. This caused Scar to eye both of them.

Edward stepped forward. "No, he doesn't have an official name. But I named him Al."

"Ahh." Scar began petting the ball of fur gently, not seeming to mind as it batted violently for his nose. "I can see the resemblance."

Ilse looked at Edward. "You named him after someone?"

"Another kitten," Edward said, shrugging, putting his hands in his pockets and suddenly feeling embarrassed. "A very big… kitten."

Scar petted the kitten fondly for a few minutes, seeming oblivious to the world. But eventually he held it out to Ilse, not swinging it around like Edward had but rather as if presenting the woman a fine and rich gift. "I'm sorry. But I don't think I can keep anything like him at the monastery. I'd love to, though."

"Think about it," Ilse said. "Find out for sure."

Edward brushed his floppy, damp hair back, trying not to sound eager. "Yeah, find out."

Scar gave Edward a funny little look, and then nodded. "We'll see."

 

 

_Three keys have not been handed over to any messenger: of childbirth, of resurrection, and of rain._

 

The hours of studying were long, long. There would be no opportunities for mistakes, and Edward knew that the critical component of alchemy… or, as this world called it, magic… was in understanding. Everything important flowed from that, and as Edward delved deeper into this parallel science of the miraculous, certain insights were won by him. Often Edward forgot to eat, and his sleep time was becoming more and more fractured… it was only the fact that he continued to schedule visits with Scar that he maintained any appropriate connection to time at all.

Days, and then weeks, passed.

Like alchemy, magic seemed to lack the power to create life. Carefully translating from Hebrew the words of the texts he had stolen, reading along as he went, Edward slowly he pieced together the mystical aspects of this world's power. It seemed ironic to him that all of this information was couched in the language of faith, but perhaps it was not that surprising… the great British anthropologist of myth, James Frazier, had pinpointed sacrifice as the turning point in the evolution of magic… and in this world, sacrifice had become inexorably tied to the gods.

Alchemy had its roots in sympathetic magic, a simple association of like with like, superstitious and spurious connections of certain powers with certain objects, along with the belief that to manipulate the world was to draw a line between unrelated things and bind them together. But somewhere along the way an important piece of wisdom was gained… in connecting things to imbue one of them with a certain quality, that quality had to be stolen from the object to which the connection was made. That is, if it was to be granted to the object that the magician wanted to transform.

In one world, this process was called Equivalent Trade. In another, Sacrifice. And in such difference of words, the severing of perceptions had occurred. Trade was something that could be achieved with the tools of natural law, but a sacrifice was something that needed to be offered up… and for humans, what universal entity existed for the receiving of such sacrifices, if not their own self-made gods?

Edward used to be able to make spears out of sand. The price, the trade for that? The energy of the human soul, stolen from the world of sacrifice.

It was all quite interesting. Edward sat in his pajamas in bed, surrounded by reams of papers and reference books, wearing glasses from time to time for when the text was particularly small. When he studied, Edward locked out the kittens, not suffering to allow them anywhere near the priceless manuscripts. He kept water and a few bites of food on a table by the bedside, but always he washed his hand both before and after eating, wanting to prevent unnecessarily accelerated destruction of the papers from any excessive oils on his fingers. Actually, Edward ended up using his automail arm a lot, as he flipped from page to page, jotting barely-legible notes on separate blank sheets of paper with his uncooperatively messy left hand.

Of all the types of sacrifice that the humans of this world had created, few schools of mysticism had been able to produce true magic: one such was that of the Jewish Kabbalists. This was because the basic concept upon which it was based was similar to the core concept of alchemy… trade between objects, or worlds, as mediated by the understanding of a skilled practitioner who happened to know the tools for the trade. In both worlds the tools were written, but also in both worlds they were tools that could be written on, or contained within, the body-- for the tools were mere symbols, and symbols could be transcended.

To read the words which contained the power he needed, Edward found himself going through pages and pages of… bible commentary. At first it drove him absolutely insane. It was not logical and clean, not like the scientific papers he had become accustomed to reading. But in between all the crazy and somewhat scandalous stories of the early people of YHVH (such as all the humans having sex with angels, the incestuous love triangles, or the discovery that it used to be acceptable for girls to be married off at the age of _three_, as Rebekah had been, to an obviously stalwart founder of the faith-- the lecherous forty-year old Isaac), Edward was finding hints of compelling truth. That which was commonly styled as the power of God was nothing more than the ability to make fruitful that which had been thought of as impossibly barren. The power to spin life out of nothingness, to connect the gates separating world from world-- and life from death-- using nothing more than the power of God's own holy name.

But what is a name? A name is simply an incantation, power encoded into sounds and lines.

This, this was the truth that even the Kabbalists tiptoed around, because they shared with their less mystical Jewish brethren a reverence for God that Edward was not at all burdened by. God did not exist. By trying to access a power outside of themselves, it was no wonder that people had been unable to find the keys to childbirth, or resurrection, or rain. But through hard-bought experience and many, many losses, Edward knew something that most people didn't: the only power that man had to spend was his own. As finite and as limited as that might be, it was real power.

Power didn't have to be just about destruction, fire, and death. Power could be healing, but only at a cost.

In the world of the living there were six gates, corresponding to the six directions: up, down, north, south, east, and west. Like a ladder these gates were connected. But this was not the whole story, nor the sum total of gates to which there, theoretically, might be access. Edward considered the following passage:

 

> Rabbi Yehudah opened, saying _Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Have you seen the gates of deep darkness?_ (Job 38:17). This verse was spoken by the blessed Holy One to Job when he saw Job tormenting himself over divine justice.
> 
> Come and see: Job said "he will slay me (lo ayahal)"-- written _lo_, _no_, with an _alef_; read _lo_, in Him, with a _vav_, encompassing all.
> 
> The blessed Holy One replied, 'Am I the one who kills human beings?' _Have the gates of death been revealed to you?_ So many gates stand open on that side, controlled by death-- all concealed from humanity, who are unable to protect themselves from them and are unaware of them.
> 
> _Have you seen the gates of deep darkness?_ Who are the 'gates of death?' And who are 'the gates of deep darkness? Actually, 'death' and 'deep darkness' are one, a single coupling: death, as has been said, Angel of Death, as has been established; _tsalmaret_, darkness, _tsal maret_, shadow of death, riding upon it, its shadow and potency, coupling as one single nexus, becoming one.
> 
> All of those rungs issuing from them, linked with them, from their gates. As is written above: _lift up your head, O gates!_ (Psalm 24:7)-- those gates being rivers and streams, six directions of the world-- so too there are gates on the other side, well known rungs ruling the world. _Gates of death, gates of the shadow of death_\-- one female, one male, the two of them as one.
> 
> All this the blessed Holy One declared to Job in response to all the words he uttered: _so whoever goes down to Sheol rises no more_ (Job 7:9)-- and all other such words. The blessed Holy One said, _Have the gates of death been revealed to you?_

 

For some, the words might be read as a warning. But Edward… Edward saw in them an invitation. His answer to the question, 'have the gates of death been revealed to you?' was… different… from that of most people. Unlike someone like Job, who had been a sufferer and complainer but not much of a doer, Edward's answer to the hypothetical God questioning him was not No, but Yes.

Yes, Edward had seen the gates. And yes, he had risen from them.

That was the inherent mystery of magic, the door barring it from being effectively practiced by most people. Because what few had ever found the will to go so far, to descend into death and rise up, bloody, taking back power as a prize? To do so one had to be both a scholar and a warrior, but that was not enough-- in the end, to perform the kind of alchemy that Edward needed to learn, there needed to be something more substantial than wisdom, something stronger than idols or gods created by man. Edward needed _words_, the words that spoke not to his fellow man but to the universe… words that would entreat for him, words that would send him home.

And for this… there was only one word with enough power: Edward's own name.

If God (who did not exist) would not lend him the keys to His own holy name, then Edward would simply have to use up the power in his own.

To master the Angel of Death, and its attendant shadow, Edward would give it his name as passage fee. And then he would go to Alphonse, knowing that to go home might do little more than send him to death in his brother's arms. But that… that was necessary. That was justice. Because Edward knew the truth now. He knew the truth. He did not want his brother to pay that price, and would prevent it by whatever means necessary.

No one wanted to die, not really. Sure, sometimes people wanted escape, and sought after death as a release from unrelenting suffering. But who would choose oblivion over an end to suffering? People gave away their lives for the simple, depressing reason that they lacked the will, or the power, to find a way out of their pain. And thus with Edward… he would die if he had too, if that meant saving Alphonse… but he wanted more than that.

So… he would have to keep studying, and studying hard. He would find the truth that he wanted to know, and do his best to discover the full price before paying it. That was only smart; that was how adults managed in the world.

 

 

"Why did you make me wear this hideous thing?" Edward complained, tugging at the necktie intent on strangling him. "I don't see why anyone will care."

"Well… they won't." Edward and Scar were walking down the early morning streets of Köln, the sun only barely risen and few people out, because it was a Sunday and everyone was sabbathing. Scar was dressed in his usual severe blacks and whites, looking rather sharp despite the plainness of his clothes. He too was wearing a necktie, one of sanded black silk. The man carried a few books, bound by a leather strap. "I just thought it would be nice if you dressed up properly."

"You thought?" Edward stopped, kicking at the cobbled street. "I'm doing this for _you_?"

"Basically… yes."

Edward lifted his hands up to undo the tie violently, but Scar reached out to put a hand over the boy's automail arm. "I thought you couldn't use this thing in public?" was the man's voiced concern, but his unvoiced 'concern' was sweet and smirking.

Reluctantly Edward dropped his arm, forcing it to hang limp. Damn. Usually he was so good about it, too. "I can take it off one-handed," he informed Scar brittlely, making as if to do just that.

"Don't," Scar said, and the fake sweetness was replaced with real pleading. "It's important, honestly."

"When do kids fucking care what people are wearing?"

"That's not the point." Scar took a deep breath. "They might not mind, true. But they'll notice if you make an effort."

Every other Sunday, it turned out, Scar was forgoing the joys of Latin tedium and orgiastic organ-playing in order to tend to children at an asylum for the lame. Against every one of Edward's expectations, Scar had actually braved the wily knowingness of Father Ernesto and had asked for permission to keep a kitten, the Al kitten, as a favour to Edward. Perhaps the man had tried to frame this as THE favour that had been asked of him, but Edward hoped that Scar was not that stupid… there was no way that a person with Ernesto's acumen could possibly be drawn in by such a transparent ruse.

Edward wished, he really wished, he knew what all that Scar was admitting to in his weekly confessionals.

In any case, somehow Scar had gotten Father Ernesto to agree, but the agreement was conditional on Edward's offering up a visit or two to the asylum where Scar served. The overt reasoning offered was that Ernesto hoped Edward's success story as a thriving scientist would be inspiring to the children, but Edward suspected that there were covert attempts afoot to convert him from committed scientist to faithful Catholic Jesuit priest. Not on Scar's part… the man seemed completely uninterested in evangelizing any faith, native or otherwise. No. Higher powers than Scar were fascinated in Edward, fascinated by his obvious gifts and his potential for giving an impassioned and appealing testimony because of his status as a cripple.

Edward could feel the distant powerbrokering and subtle manipulation here, and resented it. But for Scar-- and the kitten-- he'd endure wearing the damn tie. Besides, how awful would it be to spend some time with kids? Surely _they_ had no terrible Machiavellian agenda.

"What do you want me to do, anyway?" This was probably the fifth time Edward had asked this.

Scar shrugged. "Whatever you want. You can just listen to me read, if you like."

Edward blushed, furious and yet a little turned on. Scar's advice was non-advice, anti-advice… it seemed to take everything that the meaning of the word "advice" contained and shook it on its head. Besides, the idea of sitting in a group of kids _as one of them_ was just infuriating. "Maybe I'll read and _you'll_ listen," Edward threatened. "How do you like that?"

"If you like," Scar said, repeating himself, but he stopped to smile at Edward, face lighting up with the kind of affection that only seemed to flare up whenever Edward was being particularly transparent.

"What do you read to them, anyway? The bible?"

"Sometimes."

"Damn, that's dull." Edward thought about all the begets and begats and went into mental spasms, his cerebrum twitching with horror. "Why torture them like that?"

"Some of it's pretty good," Scar said with another shrug, anti-emotion to couple with his anti-advice. "They really like Revelations."

Edward raised an eyebrow, deciding to pull out the big guns. "Hmm… 'And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.' The Whore of Babylon stuff? That?" He laughed. "You should be shot for reading porn to impressionable children."

"It's not… it's not what you said. It's a… a guise."

"I think the word you're looking for is 'allegory'. No matter. The youth of Germany shall forever be corrupted." Edward shook his head, pretending to be overwhelmingly sad. "But you know what? I'd read them that."

"We're not trying the Bible today," Scar said, attempting but failing to secure a neutral tone as he appeared to grit his teeth. "So don't even think about it."

"Maybe some Dorothy Parker poetry, then?" Stepping up in front of Scar, holding out a hand to halt him, Edward smiled and began to recite some trendy English verse:

_In youth, it was a way I had  
To do my best to please,  
And change, with every passing lad,  
To suit his theories._

But now I know the things I know,  
And do the things I do;  
And if you do not like me so,  
To hell, my love, with you!

Scar didn't at all get it, of course, because Edward spoke in a foreign tongue unfamiliar to him, but clearly the man knew a mocking tone when he heard it. Narrowing his eyes, Scar kept walking and pushed Edward out of the way, shoving him to the side with a glare.

"I will not allow you to contaminate the minds of innocent, impressionable children with your godless, bawdy-sounding rhymes," Scar said, shoving the books at Edward and forcing him to take them. "You will read these, if you want to read."

Edward took the books by the strap, smiling at Scar intently and licking his lips as he turned to follow his lover down the street. Not bad, for a narrow-minded wanna-be prude. Not bad at all. "The Brothers Grimm? Hans Christian Andersen?" Edward held the books up before his eyes to read the gold-embossed lettering on the spines. "You're reading fairy tales?"

"Is there a problem with that?" Scar still sounded irritable, and so when Edward caught up with him he made sure to bump into Scar's body before taking up his position walking side-to-side, a friendly nudge.

"Not at all. I've never really read any of these before, though," Edward admitted, a little reluctantly because he liked to be known as an omnivorous scholar of unparalleled depth and breadth of knowledge. Hadn't he just proven his chops with both a bible quotation as well as currently popular imported (and _racy_) poetry? It was all Alphonse's fault, really… Edward had developed the bad habit of studying late and waking early, only sleeping a few hours every night because it used to give him more time to entertain his brother, and this meant that he was always, always reading something these days. Even when he was not technically studying.

"They're… nice," Scar said, a small flush creeping like a vine over his body.

"Oh? Do you have a favorite?"

"Yes."

Edward bumped into Scar again, shifting his hip so that it slid into the other man's thigh, a brief glancing touch… the maximum level of outdoors flirting allowable. 'Which one, smartass?"

"… The Queen of the Snow."

Edward had heard of that one… under a different, totally non-lame title. Narrowing his eyes, Edward gave Scar a look. "You mean The Snow Queen?"

"What's the difference?"

"One's the title, the other is just… ridiculous."

"I see," Scar said, and then he began to mutter in the Ishibalite language, words that Edward couldn't even begin to understand. It was a language he'd never bothered to learn. Edward felt somewhat ashamed for showing off his abundantly generous facility for language, including that of German, and the shame was even more acute for feeling a desperate curiosity about what, exactly, Scar was saying about him in those words that he did not know.

"That's the one I'll read to them, then," Edward said, repentantly. "Would you mind?"

"I am a foreigner here," Scar said slowly, ignoring Edward's question. "More so than you."

"True." Edward looked down, embarrassed. "Look, I'm sorry…"

".. and I do not have your kind of brilliance." Scar started walking more quickly, his longer legs making for a punishing pace. Edward would almost have to run to keep up, and he did, starting to feel angry in turn.

"So?" Edward caught Scar's eye, turning to flip Scar a aggrieved look and making sure that the man noticed that he was breathing harder, pumping his legs in a jog. "I'm smart, but you're fucking _tall_. Slow down, hot shot."

Twisting his lips to the side, putting them together tightly, Scar stepped back to a normal pace… except, as Edward noticed, it was not really _his_ normal pace, but one that was carefully measured so that Edward could keep up without straining. He'd never really paid attention to that aspect of Scar's gait before.

"Do you honestly think I could beat you in a race, unless I cheat?" Edward asked, feeling like he was laying his soul, his very soul, bare. "Some things just can't be helped."

Scar took a deep breath. "I know. That is an accurate thing to say. But still…"

"Still, it's not nice for me to make fun of you by talking above you in languages you don't understand, or to laugh at how you sometimes screw up the ones that you do?" Edward sighed. "I know that too. I really am sorry."

Scar nodded, and then turned away from Edward. "Sayeh shoma sangine shoudeh," he said, carefully pronouncing the words. "Your shadow is heavy on me," he translated, sounding sad. "Too heavy. That's what I said, in my language."

Oh. "I'm not someone you should want to live up to, you know," Edward said. "It's not like being smart has won me any prizes at life." He looked down at his arm, blowing air out of his nose in a suppressed, self-mocking laugh. "Quite the opposite."

"There is a story… a kind of fairy tale, but for both children and adults, that the people in this world have. It is for telling big stories, stories about the gods. I don't know the word…"

"Fable? Myth?"

Scar considered the two words, weighing them with the consideration of a person who, lacking in native understanding, was careful to be precise. "Myth," he said at last. "Yes. Anyway, it is about a man who steals fire from the gods, and who is punished by being chained to a mountain where he is eaten alive by birds."

"That's Prometheus. One of the Greek gods, actually…" Edward trailed off, feeling stupid for being so smart. Did he not know when to just shut up?

"You are like that," Scar said. "Isn't that what being an alchemist is like?"

"Maybe…"

"Perhaps the closer you get to stealing the secrets of the gods, you have to suffer. Maybe that is the price. But… but that is not like me. I never stole any secrets. I merely… unleashed them."

"Like Pandora?" Edward closed his eyes, bit his tongue, hating himself for being the biggest show-off showy person in the world.

"I don't know who that is."

"Another one of the… never mind. Well… She was the first woman, created to punish Prometheus through his brother. She was given a box and told not to open it, but Prometheus' brother let her… and in that box were all of the horrible things that can afflict mankind.. plagues, evil thoughts, everything. The Philosopher's Stone is a kind of Pandora's box, isn't it?" Edward paused. "You created it, and then gave it to _my_ brother… I guess, mmm… that would make your analogy very fitting."

"I do not like being compared to a woman," Scar said stiffly.

"But she was so good looking," Edward said earnestly. "It's a compliment, really." Stuffing his hands into his pockets, heedless of the damage this was doing to his image as a person with a non-functioning arm, Edward made a face. He felt like something inside of him was goading him to continue, goading him to be witty and funny instead of understanding and kind, and he hated it. "You know, I'm not _that_ smart," he said presently.

"And I'm not so stupid as to believe that," Scar replied. "False modesty is cloying."

"No." Edward shook his head. "That's not what I meant. I am stupid in that I make the same mistakes over and over again. I'm afraid…"

Scar looked at Edward, meeting his eyes for the first time in minutes. "You're afraid?"

"Yes. That I'm doing it again. …What if? I want to go home, but what if that turns me into a monster? It could, it totally could. Or… or, it could extract some price from Al, some price I haven't calculated, but something that would punish him further. What if it did?"

"Are you giving up?"

Edward felt his eyes harden and his voice was glinting as he spoke. "No. Absolutely not."

"Then don't worry about what might happen," Scar said, but he did not shrug or make any of his usual noncommittal gestures, instead walking next to Edward with eyes that looked up, looking at the sky and the heaven beyond it. "Those who want to steal something big, like the moon, or fire, must be willing to pay for it. This is the one thing I know to be true." Scar's voice held deep, compelling, even heart breaking passion. "You and your brother, you are in it together. Do not worry about what price might be extracted from him, because he is willing to pay that price too. You… cheapen… yourself, and him, to wish it to be otherwise."

Edward mmmed, taking his hands from his pants slowly, quickening his pace just a little so that it would be more of a compromise walk. "Why don't you read the story?" he said softly. "To the children. I'd like… I'd like to hear it."

Smiling, finally, the man looked away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a homage to Mitch Hedberg here in one of the lines. See if you all can figure it out. :) Also, the large blockquote dropped carelessly in the middle? That's from the Zohar.


	8. Chapter 8

A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.  
G.K. Chesterton

The house that Scar led Edward to was large but nondescript, on the opposite side of the town from where Edward was staying. Approaching, Edward felt a rare surge of nervousness... was he really prepared to meet twenty or thirty small replicas of himself? Most of the children were polio victims, but a fair number would be casualties of the recent war... missing limbs, blind, or tragically concussed; and, according to Scar, all but a few were without any kind of family support. None, however, had committed the sins he had.

Before Edward could truly wallow in his qualms, a cabal of around two or three mid-sized children filed out of the front door, demure and dressed neatly in sturdy clothes. The oldest, or rather, the tallest, was a girl who appeared to be about fourteen, and she stepped right up to Scar and hugged him. Her broad smile was attractive and almost hid the fact that she walked with a limp due to a foot deformed at the ankle. The other two children soon followed suit, a boy and another girl, both around eight. One had crutches and the other braces on her legs, but seemed to be ignoring these challenges in order to welcome 'Brother Timothy' charmingly, their high-pitched voices blending together into a cacophonous and fairly unintelligible greeting. It was a friendly scene of familiarity: one which necessarily excluded Edward, who waited by patiently and tried very hard to resist the urge to tug on his tie.

When the greetings were over, the children turned as one to face Edward expectantly. Scar waved him over and placed a hand on his shoulder, pushing Edward forward as if presenting a rare and exotic prize. "This is Edward Elric, a friend of mine." Scar's hand was heavy on the automail junction of his right shoulder, but the sensation was not painful so much as it was reassuring. "He wanted to meet you all. Please say hello."

"I'm Dora," the tall girl said with a listing curtsy, and then pushed forward the other two, who revealed themselves to be Carl and Nixie, respectively. Each child used voices both small and shy, but the way they employed their eyes was completely unpretentious and searching, revealing the kind of hungry curiosity that had not yet become stained by any guardedness. These children were, despite their wounds and flaws, still profoundly young. Suffering without sinfulness; was this what that looked like?

"It's a pleasure to meet you all," Edward said, bowing with a flourish. "We are here to feed your addiction to fine stories."

Predictably, this caused all three of the children to giggle, and Edward knew that he'd passed the first stage of the secret acceptability test. Scar gave Edward an approving, if mildly exasperated, glance, but before he could say anything the girl Dora insinuated herself between the them, taking Scar's left hand and reaching down to take Edward's right. As soon as her small fingers curled around the non-human automail she blinked and turned to Edward... but, instead of paling or becoming scared, she offered up a slowly delighted smile, as if pleased to discover in this stranger a kindred spirit. Following the smile she then gave him a curious look, seemingly to silently inquire as if his metal limb was a secret, her eyes darting to the side towards her smaller companions in an involuntary query.

"Yeah, go ahead," Edward said with a soft smile. "Tell them."

Dora lifted Edward's automail arm, causing Edward to instinctively make it limp as she shook it. Dora flapped his hand at the wrist as she waved it in excitement at her friends, causing a grinding noise to be elicited from the articulating points. Edward tried not to wince but he did give Scar a certain Look as Nixie and Carl circled around to play with the fingers of his hand as if they were a sophisticated and fascinating kind of toy, babbling about how it was just like (if not better than) the real armor that knights from the middle ages used to wear.

Before this could get to be very annoying, Scar placed his own hand over those of the prying children, and with a chiding look caused them to subside, drawing back with simultaneous blushes. Dora ran her fingers through her hair nervously, and then stepped forward, apparently deciding to smooth over the faux pas with a question. "Um... Mr. Elric? What happened to your hand?" Her nervousness was almost palpable, and strangely was enough to set Edward completely at ease.

"A bear ate it," Edward said airily, with offhand nonchalance.

"A bear?" Nixie said, eyes wide, at the same time that Carl dropped his jaw and said "For real?" in skyrocketing esteem, obviously preparing to worship Edward as one of his new heroes. Dora clasped her hands together in concern, appearing anguished and embarrassed for prying about something she considered to be an obviously delicate affair. "Oh, Mr. Elric..."

Edward met all these expressions in turn, giving Nixie a nod and Carl a wicked grin, before turning to smile reassuringly at Dora. Last of all he looked at Scar, and the raised-eyebrow look he was getting was something worthy of hoarding in his memory, because the man was priceless, simply priceless, in his inability to get used to Edward's gift for extemporaneous lying.

"My suffering was excruciating," he said, mostly for the benefit of Carl, who appeared to want all the gory details. "I think the bear must have been at least, I don't know, nine feet tall..."

"Do bears get that big?" Scar asked, sarcastically, but with an undercurrent of rich humor.

"If they're related to _you_, yes." Edward stuck out his tongue, and felt vindictive triumph when all of the children laughed. But then, Scar laughed too, so maybe it wasn't vindictive triumph so much as the regular kind. "In any case, the bear brought my days as a mighty hunter to an end, so now I spend my days plotting out ways to destroy the entire bear race."

"All of them?" Dora fretted, her laughter faltering and then halting as she contemplated Edward's gruesome plans. "There must be some nice bears out there."

"Please don't kill all the bears, Mr. Elric," Nixie pleaded. "I'm sure they didn't mean it."

Twisting his face at the mouth, Edward winced as he saw that his cleverness had gone a little too far, and positively flinched when he saw that Scar was giving him a pained look, perhaps on behalf of the children and their sudden attack of humanitarian concern-- but perhaps not. "I'm just kidding," he said, laughing to show his sincerity. "Really, I'm just a scientist. I don't really care what happens to the bears... at least, not the ones who didn't take my arm." The girls looked relieved, but Scar still showed vague hints of hurt. Oh well. If Scar wanted to read indictment into what he was saying... well, that wasn't Edward's problem, was it? The alchemist laughed a little more, annoyed that it felt so hollow.

"Why did the bear attack you?" Carl asked, tugging at Edward's arm, wanting to show that he, at least, was not phased by any of Edward's murderous plans, obviously willing to propel the conversation forward from whatever the girls were freaking out about.

"Because..." Mmm. Edward hadn't thought that far ahead. "Well, I was exploring its lair and it turned out that I scared it into thinking I was going to attack its cubs."

"Weren't _you_ scared?" Nixie asked. Edward thought about the failed transmutation that was the real cause of his losses, and nodded quietly. It looked like Carl was going to chime in again, but before he could Scar interrupted them all.

"Let's go in," he said. "I'm sure everyone is waiting."

Inside the house was dark and darkly furnished, with drab wallpaper and chipped paint. The main hallway was cool, but soon the trio of children ushered Scar and Edward into a larger room which was warmed by a wood-burning stove in the corner. The red-painted walls were somewhat garish but there was an overall comfortable feel, with thick piled carpet underfoot and shabby but plentiful furniture scattered throughout the room.

On the couches and floor, the rest of the children were already gathered, with a young nun watching over them. The nun waved at Scar when he entered, who waved back and then walked over to a couch near the stove, picking up a toddler and swinging it into his lap as he sat down. The toddler clapped and laughed to be manhandled in such a fashion, and the rest of the children perked up noticeably. Edward was re-introduced, this time with Dora performing the honors, and after a bit more discussion about the bears he went to sit down, mingling in with the crowd of broken children after passing Scar the books he'd been carrying.

Before he knew it the kids were piling on, a couple of the smaller ones worming their way into his lap along with a contingent of about four or five similar children, all crowded near and waiting for their turn. It was a bit tricky for Edward, because he didn't want anyone to figure out about his automail leg (the functionality of which could not be easily explained, especially since he had an above-the-knee amputation with steel cuffed almost all the way up his thigh). But Scar had tossed him a pillow almost right from the start, and he used this to cover his thighs in the center of his lap. It was, to be truthful, a rather awkward way to hold children, but it worked and kept anyone from asking difficult questions.

Rickets; osteomalacia; disarticulated bones. One older child with a rare ascending neuromuscular disorder, progressively stealing the strength and intention from his limbs. Poliomyelitis in smoldering viral perfidy. These were a few of the many little failures of god. One of the children attaching herself to Edward was a small wizened child who was dwarfed by a profound failure to thrive for reasons that were not entirely clear, despite having a clear case of severe rheumatism. Perhaps it was the fever that attacked the heart. She confessed, in a whisper as Scar began telling the story, that she was actually seven, despite having the thin and tiny form of a four year old.

All of these were orphans, excepting Dora and Carl, who (as Edward had already been informed) had been abandoned by their parents as being too difficult to care for. Looking around, Edward saw exactly what he expected to see, but it was still troubling. What was it that caused human beings to be able to accept such miserable fates? Why weren't there more people like Scar, or like himself-- those who raged against their pain, out of vengeance or for reasons of deep pride? It was lucky for the world, of course, that such sins were relatively rare. But still... a life of waiting and listening, of being cared for as one's body crumbled to pieces. That was living death. How could anyone accept it?

The children reminded him an awful lot of Alphonse.

Scar read, his voice strong and assured as he unwrapped the tale of Kay and Gerta, a rambling story seeming to be without discernable point as it proceeded from section to section. Edward sat up, holding the little girl in his arms carefully as he listened. The man's voice was really astonishingly lovely, deep and restrained. Gifted in a way that he probably didn't even realize, Scar's native accent blended with the German into a kind of music of speech. To his voice seemed to cling the power of the dead, whose burden the man always had been too conscious of carrying; it was seductive and persuasive, uncovering emotional meaning in the plainest of words. Lot's wife, a pillar of salt... Scar's voice was like the fires of Sodom, demanding attention even though the sound of it was completely destructive of the soul. It was too much purity and pain, too much for any innocent soul to bear... and yet, the children listened, enraptured.

Maybe they were less innocent of the sin of hope than Edward had realized, and he was reminded of his own pride. Judging them for a lack of dreams, but forgetting that his own apparent transparency hid a wealth of occult goals. Yes, these children were like Alphonse, appearing to accept their fates... but that was merely a hard shell of salt to wear for the watching world. How could Edward even presume to know the dreams of children who were more broken than him? Innocence was an presumption. Perhaps even children, even these, had sinful hopes they would not articulate, were driven by the desire to spit in the face of God as they lived, intending to steal from life more pleasure than they had been allotted.

The Snow Queen kissed Kay with kisses of ice. Kay had fragments of a deforming mirror lodged in his eyes and heart. Edward listened, trying to ignore the distractions of Gerta's various adventures, wanting to find the attraction that Scar had for this story, and slowly, slowly... finding it. His lover, with unexpected power of body and voice, calmly reading a silly story that enchanted everyone.

It occurred to Edward, then, that there was one thing in that story of Pandora that he'd forgotten to mention, the one thing she had been able to hold back and retain for humanity. Hope.

All of these children. Sinners, like Alphonse. They, too, wanted more than they had been given, and even if they hadn't drawn a circle on the earth in an attempt to resurrect their losses, they still were striving. Humans were really amazing creatures.

 

"I'm glad I came," Edward said to Scar as they left, waving goodbye to whichever of the children who were strong enough to escort them to the door.

"Are you?" Scar asked, but his tone was not really doubtful as he gave Edward a pleased look. "They adored you."

"And I adored _them_," Edward said, leering at the man with an amusingly wolfish grin. "Of course, I'm coming back with you next time." He was carrying the books again, with the full intention of stealing them from Scar so that he could devour the rest of the stories overnight and pick out a favourite. "I'll read."

Scar nodded, twitching his lips into an involuntary smile in response to Edward's suggestive grin. "Very well. If you would like. So... what do you want to do now?"

As if Scar even needed to ask. They were walking towards Edward's flat, and it was highly probable that they would not be sharing a Sunday brunch, nor would they be deconstructing the events of the morning over tea. However, needless as it might be, Edward motioned for Scar to bend his head down, and the boy whispered a few suggestions into Scar's ear with a surreptitious swipe of tongue on the soft flap of the man's ear while he was at it, causing the Ishibalite to breathe just a little bit harder and walk just a _little_ bit faster.

Maybe it was a good thing they couldn't hold hands in public like a regular couple. Edward wasn't even sure he wanted that privilege... it seemed like something one would do with a girl or a child, not with another man. But the freedom to touch, having that denied... it was a bit sexy. A lot of a bit sexy. He looked at Scar out of the corner of his eye, mentally undressing the man and indulging in some dirty fantasies that involved a fair amount of humiliation. Nothing he had to courage to ask for in reality, of course... Edward's bold imagination was tempered with a certain cautiousness. It was not easy for him to forget how much, exactly, it had hurt when Scar has fucked him. His body would reject what his mind wanted, but that didn't prevent Edward from thinking about it in exquisite detail, or considering what it would be like to ram his cock into Scar's ass, supposing for a moment that he could somehow even make it that far in.

Thinking about the improbable, Edward grinned as he thought about the surprise he wanted to reveal to Scar. All of his research into the mechanics of magic was almost done. There were still a few details to iron out, such as finding a suitable place for summoning the gate. However, he knew now the when (Equinox, fall or spring), he knew the how (a sephirot-like array containing his name as well as several other arcane designs), and even the why (mastering the powers of death via the sacrifice of some numinous portion of his soul). The chance would be risky. However, the really great news was that it was do-able, that Edward now had a calendar date to shoot for, and... best of all... he thought there would be enough time to teach Scar the details, so that the man could return along with him.

Edward decided he'd share his plans with Scar after the day's sex.

Of course, Edward knew that it would not be easy to convince Scar to give up his private purgatory and perform 'the sinful alchemy.' But, hell... how seriously could Scar be taking his penance if he was allowing himself the pleasure of periodic... nay, frequent... sex? Edward would try his hand at persuasion, using not only his voice but his body in order to convince Scar of the futility in meaningless suffering as paid out to a non-existent god, and he would force the man to admit, as his lover, to having found some measure of happiness in Edward's company.

Even if this meant exposing Scar's deep seated hypocrisy even further.... even if this meant pushing Scar towards treason to Ishibala.... Edward would give it a shot.

Certain habits of the prideful were not easy to overcome. Edward knew that his intention to supplant Ishibala in Scar's mind would be to manipulate the man into idolatry, replacing one god with another. He wanted Scar to give him that kind of priority of place, and even if Edward was not willing to return to favour, he lusted for this kind of control, a deep undercurrent of sin that he'd always had to contend with. Edward was well aware that his 'I know best' mentality was fairly paternalistic and controlling, and that his personal sense of entitlement and of being an exceptional being were the inciting causes of this attitude. But... even being able to analyse himself so accurately didn't mean that he was incapable of falling victim to the habits of his mind. Edward knew this, knew that he intended to break Scar in order to keep him, knew that this was kind of wrong but was unable to shake the feeling that despite the wrongness it was the needful thing to do.

Scar should not have to live out the rest of his life alone. No one should. This, this was the truth that gave Edward conviction. Happiness was a goal worth pursuing, even for those who lived lives steeped in sin and who seemed determined to wallow in guilt.

Peeking at the front of Scar's trousers, it was pretty easy to imagine that the man was becoming aroused just by the promise of sex. The cock was where Edward's power would begin, but he hoped that it would not end there. Narrowing his eyes, Edward thought carefully about how he'd need to approach this. It would need to be the most masterful seduction of his life, over before Scar even knew what had happened. Licking his lips, Edward took a deep breath. It was a challenge he would enjoy very, very much...

"Who's that?"

Interrupted from his reverie, Edward was not immediately able to attend to the meaning of Scar's question, blinking as he turned to give the man a curious glance. In response, Scar pointed towards Edward's flat, which was now in sight. Up on the landing just outside of his rooms, all the way up on the third story, a man was standing and staring out over the street. A tall, blonde man, with hair tied back in a disturbingly familiar manner.

"Oh, _fuck_." Edward started kicking the ground, grinding his teeth in frustration. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

Scar stopped walking and turned to look at Edward, and before Edward could delve deeply into tantrum territory he was caught up short by the look in Scar's eyes. "Does this man threaten you, Edward Elric?" Scar sounded calm, his voice measured... but he was crouching slightly, and it occurred to the alchemist that unless he reigned in his petulance he might have to witness the spectacle of the Ishibalite running off in few seconds in order to beat Hohenheim Elric into a pulp.

"That's... that's my father," Edward said, closing his eyes and shaking his head in bitter, embarrassed frustration. It was not fair... he was still _hard_, for fuck's sake.

"Your... father...?" Scar straightened, abandoning his fighter's stance and biting his lower lip. "I don't understand."

"Yes. My father, regarded as one of the most accomplished alchemists of all time, the great Hohenheim of Light. Fucker." The man in question appeared to spy Edward out, and began to wave, a cheerful welcome that made Edward see red.

Scar crossed his arms and turned to face Edward, not appearing angry but certainly weighing Edward with a gaze that was uncomfortable to bear. Ever since the revelation of the manner of Edward's death, Scar had seemed to accept the fact of Edward's secretiveness, not pressing for anything more than what the boy wanted to reveal, nor blaming him for the facts that would come out accidentally, like this. But still... Edward knew that keeping the existence of his father in this world from Scar suggested a major lapse, and knew that Scar could not be too happy about finding it out this way. "Perhaps I should go," Scar said finally. "You'll want to... talk."

Edward kicked the street again. "See? This is why it's so unfair!" he said, shaking his fist at the sky, and then he spun to face Scar, prevented from grabbing the man by the shirtfront and pulling him down to face-level only by the fact of his father, who happened to be watching everything. "Look. Yes, I do need to speak to him. So yes, you should go. But we'll talk about this later. I promise." His erection was subsiding, replaced by growing fury. "This had better be _good_," he said, speaking to Scar but with eyes and growl directing his last comment to his father.

"I see..." Scar said, slowly uncrossing his arms and losing his speculative frown. "Yes. I'm sorry that I will miss the chance to meet him, but I understand." Bowing slightly in farewell, a gesture that Edward was not sure whether to read as mocking or respectful, Scar turned and began to walk away, slowly, still using the pace that he adopted whenever walking with the smaller alchemist.

"Damn," Edward whispered to himself. Shaking out his muscles, Edward turned from the man to march resolutely towards his flat. Whatever the great, great Hohenheim wanted, Edward was not planning on letting it keep him long.

 

 

"Why are you here?"

Ungraciously, Edward had offered to let his father in, glad that he'd done the laundry since the last time he and Scar had had sex (not that he was in the habit of sleeping in come-stained sheets, or anything... but sometimes the smell from the laundry basket in the corner really got to be rank with the drying human secretions). Directing Hohenheim to sit down in a couch in the corner, Edward started up a his tiny stove in the corner so that he could boil some water for tea. The room was soon filled with his father's perfume, the sweet and deceptively pleasant smell of hidden rot.

"I haven't heard from you in a while, and was getting worried," Hohenheim said, looking out the window with his characteristically zen imperturbability.

"What about a letter? A telegram?" Edward took out a cup and saucer and set them on the table near his father. There was a sneer in his face that was reflected in the meaningfully leaden tones of his voice.

"Well... I wanted to see you."

"What for?" Edward went to collapse on his bed, refusing to stand either on ceremony or politeness. He did not see the point in making this easy for his father, and certainly didn't want to expend the effort trying.

"It's a bit embarrassing, but... I don't have much time left." Hohenheim smiled, closing his eyes and brushing his (gloved) fingers through his hair, the look of someone admitting to the heartbreak of halitosis and not the near advent of the end-stage in his terminal disease.

Edward shifted his eyes to look at his father. "How do you know?"

"The decay is spreading," Hohenheim said with a sigh. "Very soon it will extend into my face." This was reported with all of the intensity of an explanation of the next day's weather. "I didn't want you to see me after that happened."

Hmm. Edward wanted to sit up, then, and look at his father, but after having decided to lie down like a spoiled child, he was going to stay the course. "I... see."

There was a long moment of silence, and then Hohenheim coughed, not out of sickness but to catch Edward's attention. "Because of this, I won't be able to support you for much longer. So, I wanted to offer you what help I could."

"Don't worry about that," Edward said, covering his eyes with his automail forearm, voice a bit gruff. "I'll be fine... well, I know what I need to do, anyway."

"Oh really? That's... good to hear." Despite the words, Edward could detect a touch of sadness from his father, which caused Edward to squeeze his eyes tight. The man... his father... really had wanted to help.

"You can still come back with me, you know. It doesn't matter if you're... dying." Edward tripped over the word 'dying', not comfortable actually saying it but not wanting to replace it with any lesser euphemism. "Al would still want to see you." Uncomfortable in revealing so much weakness-- Alphonse's weaknesses were also often his own-- the small alchemist launched into a detailed description of all of his findings, not bothering to water down any of the technical details because he was sure that his father would understand well everything that he was saying.

Edward spoke quickly, a bit nervously. Convincing his father was not the same kind of thing as seducing Scar; for his father, even if he still held a certain amount of contempt, Edward always held an annoying undercurrent of awe. The man was over four hundred years old, after all.

Hohenheim heard out Edward patiently, and when the water started to boil he motioned for Edward to remain where he was, standing up and serving himself the tea that his son had made for him. Taking his teacup with a well-practiced air, Hohenheim appeared to decide to forgo the couch that he'd been sitting in so that he could hover over Edward's supine form, meeting his son eye to eye as he sipped the bitter Earl Grey. This was a man who always took his tea straight. "There are things you still don't know."

"Well... yes. But at this point I've determined that those things are probably unknowable, so what's the point in worrying?"

"They're not unknowable. You just don't know them." Another sip of the tea, another flash of that ecumenical calm.

That was certainly true, although Edward made a face as he was forced to acknowledge his limitations. "Do you suggest I wait even longer, pursing answers that might be impossible for me to find?"

"Not at all. But you could ask _me_." The tone of Hohenheim's voice was quiet.

There was a brief pause as Edward absorbed this. "You know the price that will be extracted?" Edward sat up, looking at his father with widening eyes. "You know what giving up my name will entail?"

Sitting down at the edge of the bed, Hohenheim nodded, and it was impossible to deny that even though he looked wise and sad he also looked a bit smug. There were some ways in which father and son resembled each other quite closely, and the ability to take pleasure in knowing something that no one else did was definitely a shared trait. "It's a price I've paid, so... yes." The smugness faded. "I have not always been known as Hohenheim."

Was that surprising? Maybe. Edward hadn't really thought about it before. "What was your original name?"

"I don't remember." The look in Hohenheim's eyes was distant but intense. "Don't you see, Edward? Your name is not something you can hold on to secretly. It really, really... dies."

"Is that all you've forgotten?" That didn't seem like such a big price, not if there would be Alphonse on the other side to remember it for him. But, what if... Edward felt his eyes widen. "...I'll forget everything?"

"No. Probably not everything. However, the gate takes many important things." Hohenheim set down his tea on a nearby side-table, taking Edward's automail hand. "This is a lesson you already know. The price of passage... it is not, it is never... cheap."

"Will I forget Al?"

"...You might."

Edward frowned, frowned deeply. "That seems unfair."

"You and Alphonse have become trapped in a cycle of sacrifices. Unless... well, you could end it now, by refusing to sacrifice any more." Hohenheim sighed again, and then reached up to touch Edward's face. It was a fatherly touch, tender and regretful. "I'm sure you already know that."

"No. I still have to try," Edward said quietly, voice breaking a bit even though he'd passed puberty a long time ago. "I can't leave Alphonse all alone. I'd rather he have me, even if I don't know him."

"And what happens when he gives up his own memories in an attempt to resurrect your own? There is only so much that sacrifice can buy for you. Things do, after all, fall apart."

Net loss. Entropy. The disintegration of the universe, of all universes. "The center cannot hold, eh?"

"Exactly."

Edward stood up and took out a cup, pouring himself some tea. He didn't bother to find a saucer. "Does this mean that you couldn't come with me, even if you wanted?"

Hohenheim looked up, startled. "Of course not. I do have a new name now, you know. And new memories." Remaining at the edge of Edward's bed, he leaned forward to pick up his own tea. "My memories of your mother... Tricia... those could be used to pay the price. " He looked down, sadly. "I could come. But I'm afraid, for me, the price is too high."

Stung, Edward stepped over to the window and opened it, looking out. Might he have to give up even his memories of his mother in order to be reunited with Alphonse? That seemed entirely possible, and entirely cruel. To remember everything else, except that... how would it change him as a person? "Is there any other way?" he wondered, feeling the familiar bite of despair.

"None that I know of," replied his father, coming to stand next to his son and look out the window.

Remembering how angry that he'd been at his father for holding back the information on this world's magic, now Edward felt that he understood why his father had done something so seemingly cruel. "How much longer do you think you have?" Edward asked, careful not to blink, his eyes welling up so that his vision became somewhat watery and unsure.

"A few months," Hohenheim said. "Maybe a year."

And then Edward would be alone, bereft of all family. "I have to go," Edward said, trying very hard to keep his voice even. He took some tea, swallowing hard. "Alphonse will just have to... remind me. Of mom. And of myself." He did not want to let Alphonse die alone. He _would not_let him die alone. "That's all."

Hohenheim nodded, with a small smile. "Good. I'm glad. I did not intend to dissuade you." His father finished his own tea with one long swig. "But... I think you deserve to know the price of something, before you pay. I don't know of any reason for why you should be denied that."

Edward closed his eyes. "Thanks. Father."

Hohenheim set down his cup, nodded like Buddha, wiping his hands against one another as if wiping off crumbs. "Now... tell me who that man was, the one that was walking with you. A friend of yours, I presume?"

A faint but palpable blush rose to Edward's cheek. "...Yes." Could he say more than that? "Yes."

 

Despite all initial intentions, Edward spent the entire day with his father, and the entire next day too. In fact, his father stayed in town for a fortnight, and Edward decided to put up with the obnoxiously pervasive smell that was a part of who Hohenheim was, and had his father sleep on the bed in his own place while Edward stayed the nights on a cot borrowed from Ilse.

It was a good two weeks. Edward shared with his father every scrap of stolen research he'd been able to find, and with a map and several bottles of beer at hand, the two Elrics had been able to derive the latitude and longitude for several likely inter-universal gates. There were a few here in Germany, and Edward focused on those, deciding at last on a remote location rather south of Westphalia in the remnants of the Black Forest, in a place where villages were scarce and-- hopefully-- people were scarcer.

Edward missed several scheduled meetings with Scar during this time, and because the time with his father seemed so short he decided that it wasn't necessary to go find his… lover… to let him know what was going on. After all, the man had actually seen his father, hadn't he? From afar, sure, but Scar was not stupid. Surely he'd figured out that all planned liaisons would have to be tabled, that Edward was now occupied with more important concerns than tawdry (if sometimes glorious) sex. Hohenheim Elric was not a perfect man, but he was family, and in Edward's world family always had priority.

If this was to be the last time that he ever saw his father, Edward planned to make the most of it; and if that meant the kind of compartmentalization of his life that ended up being a little hurtful to... some people... well, so be it.

Hohenheim proved to be extremely informative and it was actually fun talking to someone who was as up to date and intelligent as he himself was. Edward wondered, with not a small amount of regret, what it would have been like to have this man around while he was actually growing up. But those kinds of thoughts made him angry, and reminded him that he was supposed to be hating his father for being such a despicable family abandoner, and admiration mixed with sublimated fury was a kind of nauseating and complicated set of feelings to experience. So, even though it made Edward surprisingly sad to see his father go, it was also a kind of relief. Watching the man depart on his noon train to Munich had been hard, but harder still would be to face a life of always having to experience the kind of dissociative dissonance that time with Hohenheim Elric invariably inspired.

So. Two weeks and one day following the Sunday of Hohenheim's appearance, Edward found himself doing something he hadn't needed to do for a long time... sneak into Scar's monastery in the middle of the night. It felt so illicit, so _wrong_, to liaise with the man this way, when there were more mature options available. Surely, however, Scar had given up on looking for him at their regular meeting places. The man should now be expecting something like this, if all of Edward's predictions were correct. Licking his lips, Edward thought about how sweet the sex would be, after having it deferred for so long. Any serious conversations would just… have to wait.

Dropping down to the desk was no longer a matter of guesswork, and so Edward was able to slide into the room silently. He'd forgotten about the Al kitten, however, and the tiny little thing started to meow imperiously when Edward started to make his way across the floor, wanting to be petted and played with and enjoying this novel midnight interruption. After a moment's thought, Edward picked up the kitten and tossed it into Scar's toilet chamber (it was too small to be called a bathroom) and shut the door, ignoring its many protests. Edward was not surprised to find, once he could see, that Scar was already awake and sitting up in bed, waiting for him.

"Hi, you," Edward whispered, coming in close. He went for a cuddle but was rebuffed, Scar choosing instead to push him down into the mattress and lean over him, holding Edward down heavily by the shoulders. "Hey..."

"I didn't invite you, Edward Elric."

No, he hadn't. "I invited myself," Edward whispered, purposefully sounding turned on, wiggling suggestively under the man's grip. "My father left for Munich today."

"That has nothing to do with me," Scar said, his weight on Edward's shoulders variably painful but invariably heavy. "Isn't that right?"

Nothing to do… Edward almost spluttered, wanting to call the man on his ridiculousness, but this naked display of Scar's strength pulled him up short. Something must have been wrong, for the man to be in such a snit. "That's cruel," Edward said, narrowing his eyes but speaking with an even voice.

"Where were you, then?" Words like drops of mercury, quicksilver and poison and dripping with liquid conduction, transmitting a malignant energy that was more than a little vexed. Scar was, it seemed, furious.

"I was with my father. You knew that."

"And?"

"And… nothing." Curling his lip into a superior smile that the smaller boy did not bother to hide, Edward raised one eyebrow. Spending time with his genius father had made him less than desirous of putting up with foolishness. "What are you driving at?"

Seeming to take inordinate pains to compose himself, Scar released Edward and instead hovered over him, hands pressed flat into the pillow on either side of his head. The man had a warning look in his eyes that hinted that no mere petting or teasing would set things right, which was okay, because by now the mood was totally spoilt. "Do I not deserve even the least amount of courtesy, Edward Elric?" The man appeared fit to explode, which for Scar was not a particularly benign look.

"What? I told you I'd be spending time with my father."

"That was two weeks ago."

"…so?" Edward shrugged. "Is that too much time to be spending with my family?"

"Immaterial. You… you…."

"You what?"

"I was _worried_."

…Worried? Shit. Edward closed his eyes. He hadn't planned on that, but he should have. "Why?"

"No word. Nothing sent." In the hard and meaningful way that Scar had for saying everything, the man ripped into Edward with a pre-emptive rejection of pretense. "What if you'd died? Or… left?"

"You care about things like that?"

"What? Of course." Scar's tone was absolutely scathing. "Most non-alchemists do."

Did he have any right to expect to drop seamlessly back into Scar's life after dropping out so precipitously? If they had been mere acquaintances, the answer would have been 'of course.' But in this case Edward had been hasty, far too hasty, and the boy flushed to find himself so defenseless and unprepared.

The man was indeed his lover. And deserved better.

""I was… distracted." Edward said softly, looking off to the side.

Scar leaned in, and it was obvious by how irritated that he sounded that he was trying his hardest to reign in some serious rage, "So distracted you couldn't spare a few minutes to write a letter?" Scar shook his head. "Perhaps your people taught you to think such selfishness is acceptable, but mine did not."

How much should he say? How much was he willing to let Scar in on? With a sigh, Edward bit his lip. Considering what he owed the man, any amount of honesty at this point would be trivial in comparison to what they'd shared. But still… Edward was the kind of person who liked to keep the serious business of his family separate from everything else in his life, and it felt… really, really needy, to admit to family problems. He didn't want the man to see him as small and weak. But… maybe that would be better than sustaining Scar's contempt.

"He's dying," Edward said, careful not to make his voice sound accusing, trying to prevent himself from sounding needlessly sullen. "My father… is dying."

When Scar made as if to drew back, as Edward expected that he would, the small alchemist was careful to reach forward and touch the man's face, forbidding him to leave. Let Scar think it was a longing touch. In reality it was nothing more or less than an apology.

He should have sent word.

"I'm... sorry to hear that. Edward."

Lifting his body up so that he could pull his lover closer, Edward started to kiss the man's neck, but his kisses were far more tender than any prelude to sex. Scar's whole body shuddered at the touch.

"It's okay," Edward whispered. This was just the beginning of what he needed to do, and Edward experienced an intensification of his own guilt. Scar was his lover; this was a truth he had to face head on. And for that to be real he had to treat the man with more than casual honesty. He'd have to put that relationship ahead of his immediate lust.

Which meant breaking the man in order to save him. Being who he was, Edward had done much worse in his lifetime in the service of what he thought was right. It was not going to be easy, however.

"He... he came to help me. I've figured out... mmm... how to go home." Prophylactically Edward put his arms around Scar's waist as he confessed, placing both hands on the broad muscles that tightened bilaterally from the spine; he would keep his lover close and not let him back off, not willing to allow the man to do that after the announcement that Edward could abandon him yet again. But Scar did not seem inclined to move away, even though he moaned quietly into Edward's skin, turning to force a kiss onto Edward's body. The man began unbuttoning Edward's shirt.

That felt very good, and Edward's body ached with longing. Who could have ever imagined that such a simple thing would be so painful? "Come with me," Edward whispered, his touch echoing the whisper in the cobwebby way that he explored his lover's body, fingertip motion light but voracious, feeling the man up everywhere in a slow but insistent manner.

"Edward..." The vibration of sound from the man's deep voice tickled against his skin. "I can't..."

A lesser person might say 'why not?' but Edward already knew what Scar's objections would be, so he didn't bother. A less confident person would beg with a soft 'please,' but that was not Edward's style either. "Should I let Alphonse die alone?" he asked softly.

"No... no. You must go..." Scar's insistence was almost heartbreaking, but it was also stupidly self-sacrificial. Edward knew from the beginning that the man would not make any attempt to hold him, but that didn't mean that he couldn't accuse the man of it in order to lay his lover's selflessness bare. Licking his lips, Edward closed his eyes as Scar began to kiss his small frame, mouth hot on the thin wall of his chest, tongue finding the dips between ribs and outlining the cage surrounding his lungs and heart.

"Should I let _you_ die alone?" Edward whispered, his tone soft and hiding the dare implied in such a question.

"Stupid," Scar replied, continuing to kiss him but slowing down, inclining his head to look up at Edward's chin. "Stupid.. boy..."

"Should I?" His tone and associated touches were persistent. Edward would win this. He needed to. Even knowing... even knowing that this would take some of the man's memories, just as it would take some of his own. Ultimately, it was not just, not _right_, for Scar to die alone so far from his people, away from the earth in which his family and everyone he loved were buried.

But this man was not his brother. It should not hurt so much, to force him.

"You can't stop me," Scar said, this time with a small growl. "This is the price I must pay."

A tear ran down Edward's cheek. The man was so predictable, which meant that he knew how to parry this argument. He didn't want to have to be so cruel, however. He had hoped, even though the hope was faint, that he'd be able to avoid this. "You're a hypocrite," Edward accused, touching the man's neck and forcing him to look up and see his tears, wanting Scar to misread in his guilt a kind of childish sorrow.

"What's wrong?" Scar sounded surprised.

"You only suffer when it is convenient for you," Edward whispered. Even though he didn't believe it, these were powerful words to say. "You are willing to pay some prices, but that doesn't stop you from finding pleasure in my body... when you want." Edward closed his eyes, hating his own hypocrisy. It was not right to manipulate the man, but here he was, doing it anyway. "I don't think Ishibala is much impressed with your talk-only sacrifices, when the only thing you really do is sin."

"What do you mean?" It was too dark, but from the way that Scar was pulling back, Edward could tell that the man was probably going pale. His voice sounded pale, if that was even possible.

"You say this world is your penance, but I don't see it." Edward bit his lip, bit until it bled. The pain, it was necessary, if he was to continue. "You've killed in the thousands. You are a murderer. And what is the price you pay? Some praying and a lot of sex?" It was so unfair to say these things, especially since Edward didn't even believe in penance. But he knew that Scar did, knew that the man would take seriously these accusations, and think on them until he found a way to be right with his goddess.

It was highly possible that they'd never have sex again.

"I don't understand..." Scar whispered, but not in the voice of someone who wasn't getting what was being told to him, but rather with the gut-wrenching sorrow of a person who expected an attack, this attack, but not from this quarter. Edward knew that Scar had come to trust him, and he was taking that trust and using it to twist a knife in the man's heart.

"I won't let you die alone," Edward said, his voice hard, the voice of the adult inside of him, the strong person most people forgot that he was. "I won't allow it." Even if it meant destroying the man's faith in his own ability to ask for redemption. If Edward believed, even for one moment, that such redemption was possible, he probably would not dare do this.

"You are very difficult," Scar said, pulling back altogether and looking away. "And maybe a little unfair."

"There is a price," Edward said, allowing a reluctant tone to creep into his voice. "A price for traversing the gate. It... takes your name, some of your memories. If you feel you must suffer, pay this price. With me." Reaching out, Edward put a hand on Scar's shoulder, resisting the urge to touch the man more. "But I will not let you get away with thinking that if you die here alone, that you've done enough. That is both too much, and not nearly enough."

"I don't have a name..."

"Of course you do. You remember it, don't you?" Edward paused. He hated to lecture. But then why was he so good at it? "But if you really believe in what you say, let it be taken from you. For real."

For a few minutes, the only sound to be heard in the room was Scar's deep breathing, and the occasional desultory scratching of the trapped kitten, looking for a way out. Edward wanted to kiss the man, take him down and hold him. But he couldn't, and shouldn't... not if he wanted to hold on to any credibility or influence. It was very, very hard to wait out the man's silence.

"I see," Scar whispered, and then he turned around. Surprising Edward, he leaned forward to kiss the boy on his forehead. "Go. I need to pray on this."

Standing up Edward moved to leave, not saying another word. He had won, he already knew it. But the taste in his mouth was bitter, bitter.


	9. Chapter 9

There are some things so serious you have to laugh at them.  
Niels Bohr

 

South to Schwarzwald, boarding the earliest morning train, Edward fingered the tickets in his pocket as if examining a talisman. He stood alone on the platform, chilled from the cool pre-dawn air, staring at the purple sky dotted with fading stars and the marching mists ordered west by the approaching sun. Morning, breaking with nausea and an empty stomach. Edward was too nervous to eat.

Clouds gathered on the eastern horizon, preparing to scatter before the coming light, and the wind was almost sharp as the fainter stars blended into the atmosphere. Tightening his cloak around him, Edward stood and looked down off the platform into the sleeping city. October was coming. Before that, however, would come the date of equal day and night, autumn's equinox in late September. Michaelmas, the time of harvest, a feast for gathering. A time for bonfires and sacrifices.

It was on this day, which was quick approaching, that Edward had calculated his gate.

Before he could steep in morose thinking, Scar came up behind Edward, holding two cups of hot coffee and handing one to the shivering alchemist. This whole morning the man had been silent, saying nothing as he came to wake Edward at his flat and help him carry to the station the military-grade duffel bags that they'd packed together. The cups were plain metal and would be repacked once the coffee was gone, but Edward waited a moment before taking a sip, wanting to enjoy first the way the heat bled into the fingers of his left hand, working to calm his entire body.

Scar could warm him up, if he dared put his arms around Edward's body, but the man did not dare and Edward continued to shiver, the effects of the coffee short-acting and unsatisfactory even as he began to gulp down the strong, almost clove-flavoured liquid. Edward's elbow grazed Scar's thigh as the man moved to stand beside him, holding his own cup of coffee with both hands as he stared out into the dark and hard-to-see landscape of Köln, dominated (as always) by the black outline of the massive cathedral. For early September, it was very cold.

He would have liked to travel by barge down the Rhine, but such a method of transportation was far too leisurely for someone as purpose-driven as Edward Elric. It would have been nice to see the castles and vineyards of this country from their most advantageous view, but travel by train was quicker and Edward did not intend to waste any time. Besides… and this hurt a little to think about, but was logical… why should he spend any more time than he needed creating memories he would probably forget?

This thought caused him to look up at Scar. To call his time in Germany barren would be a lie; it was here that Edward learned to be a man on his own. So many thing had happened in this world, and just the memories of that might be enough to take him safely home… he had a mind full of new sciences and technologies, useful knowledge that would be very valuable in Amestris, where such technologies were virtually unknown. He also had a body that had been baptized with sex, aroused to new touch and sensations by this man he thought of and kept as a lover.

Edward would gladly forget it, and forget it all, if he could hold on to even one memory of Alphonse as his brother, or if he could continue to remember the smell and look of his long-dead mother. And yet, looking at the impassive and unreadable face of Scar, Edward felt certain pangs. His body promised to miss what his mind forgot, promised to long for these feelings even if he replaced them. Back home he could find a new lover, possibly even a better one—Edward's mind lingered for one guilty moment on who that could be, feeling somehow treacherous. Even supposing that next person was superior in all ways, however, he or she would still not be Edward's first. That was a truth that superceded memory.

The clothing that Scar wore for this final trip was the same as what he had worn the very first time Edward saw him; black and white, wool and cotton. The man didn't appear to be cold at all, but that was not so surprising for a former inhabitant of Ishibal, where the weather tended to run to great extremes. Feeling Edward's gaze on him Scar flickered his eyes to the side, but he did not turn nor did he open his mouth in any question. Words were idle, at this point, and the two men had exchanged more than their share of them in the weeks that had passed.

In the end, Scar had agreed to learn the alchemy for opening the gate to their world, just as Edward assumed that he would. The result of the man's prayers dovetailed with Edward's accurate ability to analyse him, and Scar ended up reading in translation what Edward had discovered in code, learning the array that he would need to write on the earth and learning to understand the complex process by which they, together, would savage death in order to reclaim their right to home. This was difficult for Edward to teach, and even more difficult for Scar to comprehend, but both of them were persistent and in the end it paid off.

Scar now knew as much of this world's alchemy as Edward himself did. Whatever it cost the man to learn these things, Edward had not dared to ask.

"I'm glad you're here," Edward said, feeling the words to be inadequate as he shuffled his feet, standing at the edge of the platform to look at the tracks interspersed with rocks and weeds.

The man didn't reply, but he did step take one half step backward and subtly slide into place behind Edward, standing over him like a guard in a way that allowed Edward to feel some of the warmth radiating from his tall form. Feeling rather then seeing the man looming over him, looking down on him from above and evaluating the smaller alchemist from a position of relative security and anonymity, it was hard not to feel strange. Scar must be thinking about him, thinking about what Edward meant to him, and knowing this was as uncomfortable as it would be to move out of the man's sheltering presence. After a minute Scar placed a hand on his shoulder.

Perhaps it was possible that Scar felt a little possessive over him, too. This was a speculation that would be delicious under other circumstances, but now it just made Edward feel sad.

"We'll be leaving soon," Edward continued, kicking idly at nothing. "No coming back, I guess."

"You're babbling," Scar chided quietly. "Hush." Edward felt a kind of numbness wash over his body as the man squeezed his shoulder, a total silencing of his nerves that was replaced in a moment with an almost unbearable flash of heat. It was not fair, not fair to want the man so much, especially when Scar hadn't so much as kissed his body in the past several weeks. Touch like this was torturing under such circumstances, but Edward endured it because he knew that if he wanted a reason for Scar's recent abstinence, he need look no further then himself.

A high-pitched whistling note screaming plaintively in the distance signaled the approach of their train, and upon that noise Scar stepped away from Edward, his motions smooth as he went to heft both of the main bags, leaving to Edward nothing to carry other then the tickets in his pocket. One of those bags was for him, so Edward reached forward to take it, but with a shrug and the shifting of his weight, Scar refused to allow him a chance to grab it. No touching, no holding, no carrying… it was altogether undignified, but not at all undeserved. Holding his head high, Edward pretended not to be concerned with the implied humiliation.

Once the train rumbled into view Edward looked around, but no one had added themselves to their small queue while Scar had moved in to briefly touch him. Sheltering his eyes as the single light of the engine illuminated the platform head-on as it bounded a turn, Edward wondered what it would be like to spend the next week with this man, all alone. Would his last days on earth, this earth, be filled only with the lonely quiet that marked this morning?

Boarding the train was a familiar routine, something that Edward had done so many times that his body functioned on autopilot. Since they'd be headed south and because it was morning, Edward headed for the seats on the right side of the train as he walked down the aisle towards the rear of the car. The sun would rise in the east; to avoid it, Edward would lead Scar to the seats on the west. Hefting the duffels one at a time, Scar placed them in the overhead compartments, and this time Edward didn't even try to help.

Most of the time, when Edward used to ride in trains with Alphonse they would sit facing each other. Partially this was because of how large Alphonse's armor-body was, but mostly this was because the two brothers liked to talk, and to do that they liked to look at each other. Edward was not sure what he'd expected from Scar in terms of seating; probably he hadn't really thought about it at all. Still, after Edward slid into the seat with the backwards-facing view, he was a little surprised when Scar slipped in next to him.

The fit was snug, but it worked. Edward felt the skin in his face tighten as he tried to hold back a blush; Scar was not dainty in the way he sat, preferring to sprawl with his knees bent out. It was a relaxed and completely male way to sit, and would have suggested nothing to Edward if the man had only been facing him instead of blundering with rough pressure against his body. To accommodate the man, Edward would have to sit small.

Unless… well, unless he didn't mind letting it look like something questionable.

There was no one else in the car. Dammit. Edward would take up as much space as his ticket allowed. With determined casualness, Edward parted his legs in a replica of Scar's pose. There was no way he'd let the man squeeze him against the boards, not without a determined struggle, and if the man thought he could size-out Edward into sitting like a girl, _the man_ was sorely mistaken. With a satisfied sniff, Edward closed his eyes. Who cared if they looked like loons?

"You're very amusing," Scar said suddenly, pulling together his knees into a somewhat less aggressively territorial pose.

"No I'm not," Edward said, glaring at Scar for a moment and treating him to one of his most gruesomely childish poses before relaxing once he realized that it was supposed to be a compliment. "How so?"

"You take things so seriously," Scar commented, almost archly, and Edward was going to be really mad before he remembered that he'd once told Scar the very same thing.

It was, maybe, a way of the man for saying that they were not so different from each other.

"Yeah? Well…" Edward puffed out his cheeks, playing out his anger for a minute before exploding into a kind of relieved smile that broke into an anticipatory smirk. "You must be _my best friend ever_."

Surprisingly, Scar began to laugh, his laugh hearty and… free. And then they laughed together, laughing out loud and without any kind of rational restraint.

Really they were, both of them, totally like loons. It would have been fucking embarrassing except that there was no one around to see.

Perhaps the week wouldn't be so bad, after all. Even if it was filled with events that neither of them later would be able to remember… the suffering didn't need to begin now. Edward could almost cry, he was so relieved. Whatever sacrifices that Scar was preparing to make in terms of his own self-belief, he… that man, his lover… he'd _live_ before he committed the sin in which he would allow himself to be damned. The laughter made both of them relax, and slowly, slowly Edward allowed himself to lean against the man, leaning and closing his eyes as the train shuddered to life.

 

The train ride was an all-day affair. The morning had begun chilled but clear, but as the day progressed a drizzle of rain and mists settled over the land. Bonn blended into Koblenz, which traced the Rhein closely from Mainz to Worms, crossing over the silver snaking river at Mannheim. Just past Mannheim the train grazed Heidelberg and Karlsrhue as it entered into the region of the black forest, Schwarzwald that bordered the northern marches of Switzerland. Passing Achern, the final stop for Scar and Edward was in a lonely town east of Strasbourg called Appenweier.

Hiring a room for the night was not difficult, but this time Edward did not make use of any Hohenheim contacts, instead relying on his own innate charm and the fact that his father had bequeathed him with a rather largish sum of money for this last jaunt. This was a burgh much smaller than the city of Köln, bright even in the grey wet with late sunflowers and marigolds, dahlias and gold-hearted daisies. The houses were white trimmed in dark timber, and the scent of roasted chestnuts and seared meats coming from the private hearths of the townspeople made Edward's mouth water.

This was the first time in a while that Edward had any occasion to sleep in a hotel; it didn't immediately occur to him that Scar had never been in such a place before, especially since he was taking the lead anyway in arranging for the night's lodging. But when a porter came out to take the bags from Scar to carry them up to the room, Edward saw a look of uncertainty on the man's face that made it all too clear. It was hard for him not to feel embarrassed as he tried to signal that this was customary and not an affront to his manliness. Looking over at Edward, Scar nodded as he read the boy's face, and let the porter take the heavy bags, but he scowled as the man (pudgy and unprime) struggled up the stairs with the burden that was clearly too much for him.

Unlike his room with Ilse, this was a proper hotel room, with a large bed made up in white sheets and substantial pine furniture. There was a desk in the corner, and even a leather couch by the window which looked out expansively over the rolling farmland outside of the city. The porter placed the duffels down at the end of the bed, and Edward tipped him absently, waiting for the man to leave before collapsing on his back on the bed, the universal gesture of exhaustion after a day's hard travel.

"Why is there just one bed… Edward?"

"It's cheaper." Turning his head wearily, Edward eyed Scar, who was darkening the room with his fierce and probing glare. "What's wrong?"

"How can you possibly think this is proper?"

Considering the uptight and difficult look on Scar's face, it was not hard for Edward to divine the problem. Still, he flushed a bit… he'd never actually _slept_ with the man before. Sleeping the night through with a lover; wasn't that an intensification of intimacy? "It's common for men to share a bed in a hotel. The people here won't care, trust me."

"You're sure?" Scar's frown subsided a bit, but he did not look convinced. It would be difficult to intensify something that had been importantly staved. "It seems questionable to me."

"Hey, they let us do it, didn't they?" Edward shrugged, which was not easy to do when lying down and looking to the side. "If anyone cared they would have put us in separate beds." He took a breath. "Don't tell me that you have personal problems with this."

Scar answered him with silence. Considering that they hadn't had sex in weeks, this question was unnecessary, but Edward was hoping to maybe seduce the man into a slow slide back into interpersonal congress, by first sharing a bed and then innocently feeling him up. The idea of touching that body again was dangerously intoxicating. But Scar seemed to be having nothing of it… although the man seemed ready to relent, he did it with a poverty of grace, stalking over to the high-backed couch and making a show of sitting down. Scar did, however, kick off his shoes, turning his head to look out the window in the kind of brooding that could only be called purposeful.

For some time Edward was content just to look, taking in the clean lines of Scar's body and the deep lines of his scowl, as framed by the fading green of the dying light and filtered dully by the ongoing rain. The window behind Scar was open, and birds shrilled their high-pitched goodbyes to the unseen sun while the thick, rich smell of rain filled the room; it was the kind of rain that fell without any slant or wind but which still managed to deliver with it the coolness and freshness of a higher sky. There were candles in the room for light, none lit.

"That's not a good place for you to sleep," Edward said finally, not moving but feeling the need to speak as the late evening gloam seemed to collect in Scar's distant face.

"You tempt me," Scar said finally. "I do not think I can control myself if I lie so near to you."

Framing pleasure as a sin; of course it was Edward's fault that the man was talking like this, but he wanted his calculation of weeks past to hold little sway now that Scar was here with him, seemingly committed to going through with the plan. This was clearly wishful thinking. Edward didn't _want_ his lover to control himself, but this was not the point… Edward knew that Scar did not think of sex as a sin, but indulging in it was inconsistent with penance, and so obviously the man intended to refrain now that his lapse had been laid bare. Scar needed to be convinced that having sex now would make the sacrifice of his memories later a deeper sort of penance.

How to do this, though, Edward had no idea. "I want to touch your body," Edward said after some reflection, his tone half-confession and half-reproach. And then, "I'm cold."

"Do you want me to close the window for you?" Scar's tone was conversational, almost completely ignoring the plea in Edward's words, but even in the gathering night it was clear that the man was looking right at him, looking without blinking. That was some seriously repressed desire that the Ishibalan was telegraphing, and Edward felt his body shiver, an ache of coldness and want that started at his automail junctions and delved deep into the center of his chest. Night was coming, and coming quickly.

"No." Reluctantly, Edward got up, and with meticulous deliberation he took off his shoes and socks, and then tugged the gloves off his hands. The gloves were set down on the nightstand, the shoes placed neatly near the head of the bed. Edward stood up, stepping behind Scar to click the window shut and then turning to look down at the top of the man's head. The white hair was still easy to see. Edward reached down to stroke the short-cropped hair slowly, brushing it first forward and then back, noting that Scar said nothing as he touched him from behind.

"I like to touch you," Edward said, his tone a lot calmer than he felt. Scar continued to look forward, not arching his head up or back, not bending into the fingers exploring his surprisingly soft hair. The man had baser instincts; surely he was being forced to confront them now. Edward admired his lover's restraint, and continued to touch, at first restricting the range to the scalp but slowly branching out, invading the skin of Scar's face and finding the man's cheeks and lips. He closed his eyes, outlining the shape while remembering how those lips felt on other parts of his body.

"I don't understand," Scar whispered. "You shouldn't want me… so much."

Pressing the dent on top of Scar's upper lip, Edward didn't answer. There was no answer. Perhaps it was true that Edward should not want him to the point of pressing his chances like this. But 'should' was not a word of reality, only one of morals. And Edward had left that kind of narrow thinking behind a long time ago.

His lover's breath as he exhaled from his nostrils was warm and moist, and the lips that did not move as Edward touched them were tender and straight. Using his thumb, Edward felt at the edges of Scar's left eye, and finding it closed he splayed the man's lashes by putting some gentle pressure on the lid. It was obvious that Scar wanted him too. Knowing this for sure would make the rest of this rather easy.

So what if Scar would not come to bed with him? All that meant was that Edward would have to initiate sex with him here.

Keeping his fingers on Scar's face, Edward moved around to the front of the chair, and in one smooth motion he lowered himself into his lover's lap, knees bent hard into the cracked leather as he kept his bottom situated somewhat back from the man's groin. All of his weight, scant though it may be, fell onto Scar's thighs. Saying nothing, Edward stripped off his shirt and then leaned forward, putting his left hand on Scar's chest while using his automail arm to curve around Scar's body and pull him closer by applying pressure to the small of his back.

In all of their lovemaking, it was not common for them to sit face to face like this, and Edward found that he could not meet Scar's eyes, looking down as he made a show of touching the man's clothes, the touch only lightly transmitting through to his chest. Scar did not seem to be looking at him either; the man's chin was tilted up and away, and if this exposed quite a bit of neck it certainly took the man's lips rather far away from him.

They had never kissed. Not mouth on mouth.

With a rush of newly-stamped desire, Edward decided he wanted to change that. "Kiss me," he whispered.

Slowly, slowly, Scar's arms circled around his body, and Edward closed his eyes. Edward felt Scar's mouth find his chin, dropping light kisses as he moved hesitantly up to his lips, where he stopped and simply pressed his closed mouth against Edward's suddenly tightly clamped lips.

Somehow this didn't feel like manipulation. It was too scary for that. Together he and Scar had done so much but they'd bypassed this kind of kissing, and even though Edward could think of no reason for that now, suddenly it felt like such a huge step to take. But Scar didn't pull back and slowly Edward relaxed, and when he relaxed Scar did too, and before he knew it his lips parted, and Scar's tongue slipped into his mouth.

The taste was so different than what he expected; Edward had never kissed anyone like this before, and as a rule he could not taste the inside of his own mouth, just sometimes the residue of food left behind. It was sweet and nice but also strangely bland. Scar's tongue, so hot on other parts of his body, did not feel so warm now; this was probably because its temperature closely matched the heat inside Edward's own body. But if it was strange, to have the man inside of him at the same time that he used his own tongue to explore inside Scar's mouth, it was also wonderful. Devouring, consuming; he wanted to take in everything, and be completely subsumed.

Edward began to grind his cock hard against Scar's groin, and the man was hard as he returned the desperation, clutching at Edward and half-lifting him as he made Edward's body and spine stretch, tilting his own head back even as they kissed just so that more of the boy's body could come into contact with his own. Scar's fingers in his back hurt, and Edward clutched his automail hand in response, pinching hard the smooth flesh under Scar's shirt. They were hurting each other; they were kissing each other.

It would be ideal if they were both naked but Edward didn't want this feeling to stop. For as long as it was possible to tolerate, Edward and Scar kissed without break, finding novelty in the experience even as the newness faded, an echo of wrongness that somehow sustained lust. This was a man, after all, whom he'd tried to kill in another world. Significantly, this was also a man who had set out to kill _him_. Both of them were now stripped of their previous killing power, but not the kind of lusts that drove it… or them. Edward, who was always so desperate to be alive… and his lover, who had been whipped into vengeance by death. The only way they could truly meet together was in loss. And through this.

Hard to say the moment that Scar began to strip Edward further, taking down his pants and underclothes and revealing the naked cock underneath. The room no longer felt cold, and it did not matter that it was becoming very dark. His pants pooled inelegantly at his mid thighs. Scar still was wearing everything, and now that Edward was almost completely naked he felt this lack of clothing as a power differential in Scar's favour, but it didn't matter, it so gloriously did not matter. Edward reached down and touched his own cock with his automail arm, and for once the coolness of the mechanism didn't repel him.

The kisses now were punctuated by pauses, but whenever they resumed they felt more greedy than ever. Scraps of whispers from Scar, foreign words of Ishibal, accompanied the pauses from time to time. Edward knew the man well enough by now to know that he was not uttering words of benediction, or even words of love, but simply the basic unimportant things that anyone would say during lovemaking, such as 'more,' or 'please.' The fact that Scar retreated to his native tongue at times like this indicated acceptance and a lack of artifice; the change in pitch of Scar's voice intensified the depth and clearness of Edward's receipted desire.

Edward repeated some of the words, not knowing what they meant exactly because the man did not usually care to translate during sex. But when he murmured them, tongue tripping over the foreign cadences as well as the sounds his mouth just did not know how to make, Scar kissed him harder.

Holding his own penis carefully with his false fingers, Edward used his hand as a kind of cage to keep it from bending against Scar's body, forcing himself back and putting a barrier in his lover's way. The automail was strong, and made him stronger than he would otherwise be; Edward pressed the inside of his steel left thigh hard against Scar's hip, grunting in pleasure as Scar offered up a willing moan. After a moment Edward let go of his cock, and he cupped his right hand against Scar's groin.

"Take me to bed," Edward whispered.

Edward barely needed to wrap his arms around the man as he was lifted, but he wasn't really able to get his legs around Scar's body because of the way his legs were still bound above the knees. Damn clothes. Before he could complain, however, Scar slung one arm under both legs and scooped the boy up into a sideways embrace. A little light was left in the room, but not enough for clarity; it was the greywashed darkness of an overcast sky just past dusk. Step by step Scar approached the bed, moving carefully so as not to trip, and Edward could not see his face.

Edward was placed somewhere left of center in the rather expansive bed, and the man crawled in after him, staying to one side so that he could help Edward finish finding complete nakedness by pulling off the mess of trousers and flinging it off somewhere in the corner. The man's hand was rough and calloused against Edward's skin, reflecting all the manual labor he did in the monastery. Lying side to side, Scar touched first Edward's flank and then his chest, and then cupped his chin to lean in and claim yet another kiss.

Why hadn't they done this before? Was it because they were both men? Scar's tongue filled his mouth but was a lot softer and less predictable than his cock. How the man managed to keep his kisses dry, with minimal saliva, was a mystery. But it was also quite nice. If this was what a diet restricted to berries and greens and a variety of grains did, Edward was all for it.

"You want me," Scar said, stumbling a bit over the words as if either astonished at their truth, or in a clumsy parody of Edward's preferred flirting style. But despite the hitch his words had conviction, a kind of reverent conviction.

"Yes," Edward affirmed, reaching up with his automail hand to touch the man's face, before allowing his metal fingers to stray elsewhere. "I do."

"I will do my best to please you, then," Scar said softly, kissing the outside of Edward's lips.

"You think?" Edward replied, hand migrating from chest to muscled stomach and then down below the flat bones of the pelvis, feeling the man's hard penis and groping for his balls through his clothes. "Don't pretend that I don't see through your not-so-clever plan." Rejecting Scar's kiss in a business-like flurry of motion, Edward sat up and started to undo the buckle of the man's belt. "I'm going first."

Angst! Edward wished he could see whatever consternation was in Scar's face, because it would surely be worth witnessing. The heavy silence that fell was quite telling, however. This far aroused, Edward was shedding guilt like scales, and the idea that he might be making Scar uncomfortable did not currently have the power to annoy him. In fact, that added to the spice. Unbuttoning Scar's trousers and reaching in to free his cock, Edward dug in with his fingers, small on Scar's body.

"I wonder how big you'd be if I measured right now," Edward said conversationally, figuring that if he was going to incinerate Scar with shame he'd might as well drop some real A-bombs. It was so nice to stroke the man's erection lightly, making it twitch. "Because, mmm… I do want you. A lot." As if to confirm this for himself, Edward's own cock ached. "Too bad you can't fuck me like you did that one time, don't you think?"

"You're treading a fine line, Edward… _Elric_," the man managed to blurt out, and Edward smiled secretly as Scar struggled to sit up, leaning on his arms but still leaning back, allowing Edward to find a place to sit between his legs.

"Perhaps," Edward mused, kneeling in turn so that he could bring his penis in contact with Scar's own. "This would be a lot easier with your pants off, though." He leaned forward to unbutton Scar's shirt, and licked the pectoral muscles where they dipped to the sternum. If the gesture was at all suggestive of using his mouth in a more naughty way, that had to be simply because his lover had a dirty mind.

"I will hold you down if you try it," Scar promised, tone falsely dire, allowing the meaning of the word 'it' to be inferred from his strangled tone. He spoke very slowly. "So why not just let me…" The man's voice trailed off, clearly unable to describe in detail exactly what he wanted to do.

Edward had no similar qualms. "Suck my cock until I come?" There was some nipple licking. He could barely see the outline of the man's head when he finally looked up. Scar nodded mutely. "Ah. But even though I want you, you want me more. Admit it."

At this, Scar groaned quietly, not disagreeing. "Does your brother know you are so brazen?"

Interesting tactic, the WWAD approach. "What? Fuck no. I've never slept with _him_." Not that he hadn't… well, never mind. Scar didn't need to know those kind of details. "I dare you to ask him, when we get home."

Touching Scar's chest and then groin, thighs and then flank, moving his hands quickly and avoiding the penis for a little bit, Edward leaned in and upwards, taking the man in with a deep tongue kiss. Scar must have been rendered temporarily helpless by his wit, because he yielded without taking advantage and using his own tongue. Edward decided to pull back after a few moments, but before he could Scar wrapped his arms around Edward and forced him to stay for the entire duration of the kiss, stay on his own terms, stay until Scar was satisfied that his own tongue had enough work. It was a long time before the man pulled back.

Initiative… mmm. Words of Ishibal were flung at him, a string of passionate nonsense pitched low and deep. When Scar rolled him over onto his back and then stood up, getting up off the bed and flinging away the remainder of his clothes with almost scornful intensity, Edward knew that he had him.

Guilt-ridden Scar was not nearly so sexy as Scar the sinner, God's executioner, and it was the latter who was stripping now. Edward wasn't precisely sure how it worked, but maybe there was some sort of disconnect within the Ishibal religion that allowed penance to be accrued like debt, and thus to be deferred when it was inconvenient to pay. It was possible, however, that the man just didn't think that it was at all likely that he could ever be forgiven by his god, and had basically given up.

Whatever. Scar needed to go home, and die where his brother had died, and live where his brother had lived. And right now, lying back and trying his damnedest not to stroke himself into a quick and dirty orgasm, Edward really didn't much care where Scar's guilt lay. He just wanted to touch Scar's naked body, and put his mouth on the man's cock, and have that quantifiably large cock in his ass. That wasn't so hard, was it?

"Fuck me," Edward whispered. He wanted that pain again. He wasn't sure why, but he wanted it. Badly.

"I'm not," Scar said with a measure of contempt, coming in to lie next to Edward's body after every scrap of clothing had been discarded. "I won't." In a flash, an unexpected sweeping motion, Scar soon had both of Edward's hands clamped together firmly at the wrists, holding them together with his one of his own in a vice grip above Edward's head. "You are far too confident, Edward." Using his pelvis and just one of his legs, Scar immobilized Edward's lower body and leaned in to kiss the boy on the lips. "Don't think that I don't see through your far-too-clever words."

"We appear to be at an impasse, then," Edward whispered. "If you hold me, you can't go down on me. And if you let go… well, I'm going to get you to come so fast that you won't know what happened."

"If I have to, I will tie you," Scar threatened. "And then you will be forced to endure my mouth on your body, wherever I choose to use it."

"Would you seriously?"

"You seem to deserve it," Scar replied, half caustically, before going in for another kiss. Edward didn't dare to bite the man, and thus went his last bit of autonomy. It was too sexy for words; Edward squirmed as much as he could.

"Oh come on," Edward said, but his voice was half-hearted as he tried to rally a protest. "I'll be good." He wouldn't, really. This sub-res meaning was probably made pretty clear by the insincerity of his tone.

"When we're both naked? What kind of fool do you take me for?"

"One who _wants_ it."

"I want it," Scar affirmed, bending to lick under Edward chin and along his neck. "But that is beside the point. Either we do this my way, or not at all."

"I guess you'll just have to tie me, then," Edward replied, licking his lips a little as he considered it. "But it had better the fuck not hurt my automail."

"Come with me," Scar said, putting his arms around Edward's body and sliding him toward the edge of the bed, forcing him to sit and then stand up, walking with Scar's arms wrapped firmly around him over to one of the large duffels. Scar forced him to kneel against the wall, and then switched to holding Edward's wrists in place, one-handed, behind his back while he used his free hand to both unzip and dig through the bag.

Scar had been the one who packed; he knew where everything was; the man had a _system_. In seconds a rope was pulled out. Edward knew it because he felt the man using the rope to tie his hands together securely above his head.

As expected, the knots were secure but not painful. "How's that?" Scar said as he tested the knots. "You're going to sleep with those all night, you know."

Damn. "Could be worse," Edward hazarded. "This is really… mmm, kinky." Edward gasped as Scar's hand moved down his side to touch his buttocks. "For your information."

"I don't know what that word means," Scar said, but his tone was so dry it was not at all clear that he was telling the truth.

"It means…"

"I think I'll have to tie you to the bed," Scar said, interrupting him. "Just to be safe."

Before he knew it Scar was marching him back into bed, lying him down, and then attaching the rope to one of the bars in the headboard, thoughtfully giving him a foot or two of purchase.

It was weird to think that he'd allowed himself to be trapped like this, but there was no other way to explain how Edward found himself staring up into the pitch black, forced to twiddle his thumbs and ache and _ache_ until finally Scar resumed kissing, taking his old leisurely time about it as he began up at the top and took the local, with many stops, on his meandering way down Edward's compact body.

"Explain to me," Scar said quietly in between a kiss to navel and one to the skin just over his bladder. "…What it is you get out of this."

That was so unfair; it _tickled_. "It should be obvious," Edward spat, not really up to talking right now.

"I want to know," Scar said, his tone simultaneously slightly sadistic and quite a bit masochistic; a nice trick. "Tell me."

"Specify, then," Edward demanded, wanting to buy some time from having to talk, or think, while Scar was circling the area of his groin. Current kiss locations included his right inner thigh and the tender strip of flesh where thigh met scrotum. "Get out of _what_?"

"Touching me. Having me touch you. Everything."

"I like you," Edward said, tone confessional. "That's all."

"That's all?" Scar lifted Edward's hard cock, pressed it against his belly, and began licking it. Edward wished he could see. "That's certainly enough. But.." Edward pulled against the rope and tried to move his legs, but Scar was holding those down now with his arms. "Why?"

Ah, the perennial 'why me?' Asked by all men, including far lesser men than Scar, and about all sorts of different things. Edward knew that there was a problem with being too specific with his reply, mainly in that the question itself was too meta for there to be any answer that justly dealt with the underlying self-doubt. Beside, at this point Edward was far too horny to really want to get into it. "You… come… highly recommended."

Yes. Even Alphonse would approve of that answer. Scar seemed to approve, too, because there were no more questions, just the inexorable slide into sucking, using the technique he'd perfected over many previous encore performances. Being tied up and unable to respond other then with small noises, however, was maddening.

Coming was inevitable, and because of all the foreplay it happened rather quickly. Edward, once he felt it coming on, strained to try hold it back for just a few more strokes inside Scar's mouth. This was futile. Per his usual habits, Scar swallowed, taking in everything as Edward spilled into him. Edward gasped, making animal noises. Keep it in… he wanted to keep it…

Bottoming out was always hard after sex, particularly after good sex, but the sense of irreparable loss was momentary and soon replaced by drifting bliss. Being tied up meant that Edward had no responsibilities to even try to coerce Scar into orgasm now… if the man wanted it, it would be pretty damn easy with Edward trussed up for him like a fucktoy. So, Edward would let Scar worry about his own cock, and he would concentrate just on breathing and feeling heady and on top of the world.

Tugging the sheets and blankets back from beneath Edward's body, Scar covered him up after a moment and then slipped in next to him, naked and hard and holding him so, so tightly.

Night came in full, and many minutes passed, minutes dragging into what felt like hours.

It was a long time before Scar's erection finally subsided on its own, longer still before Edward felt the grip around his body relax and his lover fall quiet into sleep. It was somewhat harder for him, because with his arms held high and his body wrapped in another man's arms, full relaxation was a lot more elusive.

Damn the man for being so uselessly, pointlessly, hypocritically noble.


	10. Chapter 10

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.  
G.K. Chesterton

 

Morning came, and when Edward finally woke he found his arms untied and himself still lying in Scar's arms. The man was sleeping soundly and even faintly snoring, but must have woken up briefly some time earlier and decided that the demon child that was Edward Elric had been sufficiently tamed.

Other then with his own brother, Edward had never slept the night in the same bed with another person before. Sure, Winry and he used to take catnaps from time to time at her place, sprawled out over her bed… but it had always been during the day, always included clothes, and any intentional (or even accidental) touching had been mutually forbidden as the result of at least seven separate Elric-Rockbell treaties. Sunlight filtered through the quivering needles of a fir tree just outside the window, lighting the wall opposite from the bed. Edward stared at it a while, content simple to enjoy Scar's well-muscled arms around his body, the scent of sex that rose warmly from under the sheets, and the sinusoidal rise and fall of the man's breathing.

His whole body moved when Scar's did.

Edward closed his eyes, smiling as he thought about going back to sleep. He shouldn't, of course, but it was nice to think about. He missed having the daily rush of kittens to tame his weariness.

The Al kitten, now. Edward would miss that guy a lot. And so, most likely, would Scar. Father Ernesto was a nice man and all, but he was not really a cat lover, and once he discovered that Scar's absence was more than a temporary thing, he might end up giving the poor little thing away to yet another new owner. Edward hoped that this wouldn't be the case, but his hope meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. Of all the loose ends that would have to be left untied, this was the one that burned the most.

After a few minutes Edward struggled to get up, disengaging from his lover's arms. It didn't take him long to draw up water to bathe, although all he ended up doing was a quick sponge bath because he didn't want to fuss with the automail. He made the water extra hot, which was how Scar seemed to prefer it, and before he went to find his clothes he woke up the man and pointed him towards the bathroom. Rubbing his eyes blearily, Scar complied without words.

Funny: Scar looked almost hung-over. Apparently standing right on the edge of a really good orgasm for half the night and just letting it pass him by was not exactly a restorative thing to do. Pitilessly, Edward followed Scar into the bathroom and watched the man climb into the tub, leaning against the wall to make sure that Scar didn't drown or anything by accidentally falling asleep in the water. Plus, this way he got to stare at Scar naked, for free.

"Want me to scrub your back?" Edward offered, after Scar settled into the bath only to close his eyes and not move for many long moments.

"Shut up," Scar said, without opening his eyes or moving one centimeter.

"Yes, sir," Edward said, smirking. "But is that a no or a yes?"

"If you touch me right now I will have to seriously consider killing you," Scar said quietly.

"Scary." Ambling near, Edward knelt at the edge of the tub and placed his elbows on the edge, leaning forward with chin on the heels of his hands. "You should have let me take care of things for you last night."

"My decision," Scar mumbled, keeping his eyes closed but crossing his arms and lifting his chin defiantly. "Did you know that you kick and snore when you are asleep?"

"So do you. Well… snore, anyway." Edward touched the water with his left index finger, making small wavelets as he stirred the hot water as if it were tea.

"Whatever I do cannot possibly compare to the wretched noises you were making last night." Opening his eyes at last, Scar watched Edward play with the water. "Don't even think about splashing me, either."

"Your decision has left you totally grumpy," Edward smiled, a friendly and forgiving smile. Scar probably found it maddening. It could not be easy, even now, for the man to refrain from at least jerking off. "Don't worry, I don't want you to be tying me up when we hike the road to Oberkirch. I'll leave you be."

"I know." Nodding, Scar returned the smile… a bit grudgingly, but there it was. "Sorry. But you are too desirable for me to have an easy time of it. You must realize this."

"I do." Daring much, Edward reached forward to ruffle Scar's hair, winking as he did so. It would be so easy to beg the man to just get over it, but of all the many unfair things he'd subjected him to lately, that seemed to be going way too far. "Come on, let me clean you up. I can at least do that much."

Scar stared at him for a long moment, saying nothing.

"Don't insult me by thinking I'll act like a child when it counts. I'll just scrub your back, nothing more."

"That's not it," Scar replied at last, meeting his eyes with a clear blush in his cheeks. "But if you touch me now I will certainly have to fuck you."

No hesitation over the big curse word, none at all. Scar must have been thinking about saying that to him all night, practicing it out in his head. Nodding, Edward leaned in to kiss Scar lightly on the lips, and then stood up. "Be ready in half an hour, then. I'd like to be at the ruins before noon." He then walked out of the bath and closed the door behind him, sighing as he did.

 

 

At the bottom of the hill was a small abandoned stone arch, the trailing footpath under it near vanishing from disuse. Waxy-leafed ivy climbed the arch from side to crumbling side, and the tall grass leading up to the arch was dry and a burnt yellow at the tips from wounds taken during the recent summer. Edward joined Scar in walking through the arch and then stopping, squinting to examine the steep climb to Schauenburg Castle.

The wet from the previous day's rain had evaporated off in the clear, angled sunlight. Shifting the strap of the duffel so that it didn't cut so painfully into his shoulder, Edward took a deep breath.

"Want me to carry that?" Scar asked, voice neutral.

"I want you to stop asking me that." Marching onward with atheistic fervor, Edward grumbled as he started up the hill, trying to hide both his panting and his terminal droop. Forget miles; every yard conquered was a real triumph.

Very soon Edward would begin preparing the arrays for opening the gates of death. In his notebooks he'd scribbled pages of complex alchemical design, modifying the forms and symbols he was familiar with in his bid for home. Thinking about all of the work he'd done, Edward bit his lip.

He'd done this before. He'd done this very thing before. It was the very definition of transgression, of pride, that he was willing to try again.

Some things, after all, would always exist beyond the power to calculate. Humans, which could be made so cheaply, stood before him in his mind like an unending wall of accusation.

_Water, 35 liters. Carbon, twenty kilograms. Ammonia, four liters. Lime, one and a half kilograms. Phosphorus, 800 grams. Salt, 250 grams. Niter, one hundred grams. Sulfur, eighty grams. Fluorine, seven and a half grams. Iron, five grams. Silicon, three grams._

…Plus fifteen other elements, all in diminishing quantities so as to seem almost, but not quite, meaningless.

In both this world and his own, the physics of alchemy often boiled down to equations with constants. If stripped to the core, a constant was merely the measure of everything that existed in the universe that could be extrapolated but not explained. Truths experimentally verifiable, but logically almost random. There was no reason that pi, for example, was 3.1415 (on and on, into infinity)… the number just _was_, and that was its own reason. Constants were the true gods of the universe… but even they had the potential to be false, to fail when humans attempted to warp reality.

Scar reached the summit first, and Edward was panting hard as he struggled to finally join him, dropping his bag as he looked around to survey both the full scope of the ruins and the surrounding countryside. For a while he just breathed, bent over with hands on knees as he tilted his head up to take in everything. "I'm just going to ask you this once," Edward said finally, after catching his wind. "Do you…"

Cutting him off with a sharp hand gesture, Scar turned to Edward with weighing eyes. "Don't ask," Scar said, tone brackish.

"You didn't even wait to hear the question," Edward protested.

"I know."

"I'm not going to ask you to fuck me."

"I _know_." Scar reached up to run fingers through his hair. "Whatever doubts are plaguing you, let them be." Leaning down, Scar swiped Edward's duffel before the boy could protest. "Don't offer me an out."

"Hey…" Edward made a sour face.

Scar said nothing, simply began walking towards the free-standing stone wall, several stories high. In the wall were several arched windows, but behind those windows all that could be seen from this vantage were pieces of the sky. The castle that had once stood here was now merely impressive rubble. After circling around the wall and stepping over some prickly brush weeds, Scar and Edward stepped onto the floor of the leftover foundation, looking up and around as they took in the open-air space.

"There," Edward said, pointing. Right in the center of the stone was a place that was smooth enough for chalk work.

Nodding, Scar dropped the bags and opened up one of them, sorting through all of the items inside. Edward sat down on the opposite side of his lover, watching as Scar plundered in a militaristically systematic fashion. Soon Scar had pulled out a tool kit, a large sheet of folded canvas, metal stakes, and rope.

The first past of this venture was all Scar, with only a bit of an assist from Edward. Because it was autumn, capricious rains were always a possibility… and even though today was fine, tomorrow might not be. So, before Edward made one mark with his chalk, Scar was going to set up a sheltering tent for his work. Edward put on a pair of work gloves and watched as Scar unfolded the canvas, lying it flat over the area Edward had indicated. He then walked around the edges, dropping supplies wherever they might be needed.

Scar took off his coat and dropped it on a large stone to the side, and unbuttoned his sleeves at the cuff, rolling them up. "Ready?"

Edward nodded, kneeling at one corner of the canvas. This part was the worst, for getting discovered. Scar knelt next to him, showing him where he wanted Edward to hold the stake.

Of the two of them, only Scar was strong enough to drive stake into stone. Edward leaned back but held the stake securely, looking up to watch his lover as he swung his hammer. The hammer was heavy and Scar's aim was true, and the sound as the stake broke the warm-grey sandstone echoed loudly from the sole wall standing. It was a good thing that the castle was fairly removed from the main town, but still Edward winced. Too loud.

Under other circumstances, Edward would have enjoyed this display of Scar's raw power. Those arms which could crack the stones of the earth were also arms made for holding him fiercely. It was a man's power; Edward had it too, but to a far lesser degree… and a portion of his own power was artificially supplemented. A healthy sheen of sweat developed on Scar's brow, and as the stakes were placed he unbuttoned the top part of his shirt. Edward kept his eyes on Scar's face the entire time, but the man only had eyes for the target he was pummeling into the man-made foundation.

The canvas was a large rectangular sheet, and because it was meant to be only a temporary thing Scar was going to raise it at the four corner points only. This meant a total of twelve stakes… three at each corner. Careless of any desire to preserve the beauty of the ruins, once the holes were made the man poured a limestone powder into the holes, portland concrete, mixing it with water to cement the stakes in place. Now all he had to do was let it set… Scar folded up the canvas and set it to the side. Satisfied, he turned to Edward.

"Your turn."

"Good." Edward took a deep breath. It had been a long time since he'd drawn a real array. "Ready to be my personal slave?"

"If by personal slave, you mean someone who plans on tying you up again this evening… sure."

Blushing, Edward closed his eyes and tossed his head a moment. That was a sharp burn. Scar was getting better at dealing with his smartassitude, and Edward found that he liked it. Shuffling through his own bag, Edward retrieved a large metal pole and tied a rope to it, and took it over to the spot dead-center between the stakes. Using a piece of thick white chalk, Edward drew a thick point, and then balanced the pole on it. "Here, hold this."

Obediently, Scar came over, and Edward risked licking his lips as the man came close. "If you tie me up, will you…"

"No."

Edward made a face, and then took the free end of his rope, pulling it straight it until he held it taut about five meters out. "You're getting in the way of me forming great memories to sacrifice, you know," Edward accused, his voice teasing but also slightly frustrated. He wouldn't mind spending his last nights with Scar tied up all kinky, but without a mutual orgasm it would seem… kind of cheap.

Silence. Edward looked down, smiling as he began to mark the circumference of his array, using the rope as reference to keep it perfectly circular. Even though it was nice to be triumphed over from time to time, Edward did like awfully to win. Scar's desire… Edward imagined that he could feel the man's eyes on his small body, watching him hungrily as he prepared the skeleton of his science.

This was not the time for dirty thoughts, though. It took some time before Edward had a circle clean enough to satisfy him, and once he did it was time for pulling out his pile of notebooks, going over his pages and pages of drawings. Even though he had the circle down _cold_ from ages past, he still felt like dithering and tinkering with his designs; adapting the sephirot of the Tree of Life into a functional array that he himself could use had always been more art than science, and summoning the tools for effective ritual meant delving deep into his understanding of symbolic forms and meanings, adapting them to fit his alien consciousness.

Brooding for some time, Edward didn't notice at first that Scar had sidled up next to him and was looking over his shoulder after setting down onto one knee. Thus, he startled a bit when the man spoke up, deep voice surprising him from his complex reverie.

"What's the hold up?"

Edward turned to Scar, treating him with the fuzzy look of an intellectual who is not prepared to come down from the heights of his calculations in order to discuss them with mere mortals. "Erm?"

"You've been sitting there for a half hour, doing nothing. Is something wrong?"

"This," Edward said, pointing an accusing finger at one of the drawings near the end of his notes.

Leaning in to get a better look, Scar frowned, and then looked up. "That looks fairly complicated. Are you afraid you won't be able to draw something like that on a large scale?"

"No way," Edward said, almost scoffing, before returning to glum pique. "It's easy to scale designs like this if you know how, and I do. But… look." Edward pointed at the figure, a chaotic swirl of spikes and curving forms, which looked more like a curling wave crashing against a rock than the ordered alchemical designs he was used to. "It's uneven."

"Eh?" Scar vaguely raised one eyebrow, the kind of perplexed look Edward had seen in his face exactly one time before: when the man had flown over a building in East City fleeing pursuit from the military, only to find Edward, Alphonse, and Dr. Marcoh all conveniently lined up for assassination.

No matter how much Edward had taught Scar about magic, the deeper understanding was something that only he alone could carry. "Here," Edward said, pointing with a blunt fingertip. "This is supposed to be Jacob's ladder, right?"

"Right." Scar crossed his arms, a game attempt at looking subtle. "From the dream, in the Bible. I remember that."

"So why isn't it _symmetrical_?" Edward clipped the word short, irritability growing as he returned to contemplate the troublesome array.

"… because that's how you drew it?"

"That's what theory told me to draw," Edward said tightly. "But I don't like it."

"Oh." Scar tapped a finger against his arm. "Well, hey… Maybe it should look more like a ladder?"

Maybe it should look like…. "What are you, stupid?" Edward shook a fist high in the air, sounding outraged and even a bit insulted. Scar looked at him, slightly startled, and Edward made an effort to contain himself. "The ladder is just a metaphor."

"I see."

"Stop looking at me like that." The man was actually smirking, damn him.

Scar smoothed his expression, and actually offered Edward a smile, albeit one that was an odd mixture of shy and sly. "Sorry," the man confessed. "Go on."

"Right." Edward nodded, twice, feeling a look of serious concentration come over his face, abandoning his brief moment of genius paranoia in order to move it the meatier realm of genius megalomania. "So, what does this have to do with ladders, you might ask? It looks like oil spilled on water. But that's alright, that's what happens when you translate a multidimensional concept into two. That's not the problem."

"I'll take your word for it." Scar took a deep, presumably calming, breath. "What is, then?"

"Where's the circle? I ask you that… WHERE IS THE CIRCLE?"

Speechlessly, Scar pointed to the chalk drawing that Edward had just made.

"Exactly." There was a pause, a meaningful one. Edward eyed Scar. "And, shut up."

Scar reached out to touch Edward's hair, smoothing the plaits of his braid and stroking the top of his head. It was a fond gesture. "You know what you have to do," he said softly, but with assurance. "You can do it."

"I know I can… but…"

"No buts. Remember, Alphonse is counting on you."

Looking into those mahogany brown eyes, Edward stilled and then slowly nodded. "Al is pretty gullible sometimes," he said, deciding to take comfort in the man's faith in him. "Okay, though… okay."

"Good." Scar said, lifting his hand with a look of pleased resolve. Edward let loose a relieved little smile, and Scar smiled back at him, nodding as if Edward finally was seeing a joke. "Where is the circle...?" Scar raised the pitch of his voice slightly, making it somewhat more boyish, and laughed warmly. "Sometimes you are very amusing."

"…"

Edward reached out, blinking, about to be consumed with a pressing need to explain the whole thing all over again, seeing as how Scar obviously didn't get his angst and who had just now betrayed that all of his faith was merely a matter of indulgent appeasement. Before he could splutter out a clarification, Scar patted his shoulder and stood, picking up the bag containing the overnight supplies.

"I'm going to set up camp now."

"But… the circle… "

"Yes, yes. It's quite nice." Scar waved one hand in a friendly (but ultimately dismissive) gesture as he walked away, turning his back to the shaking alchemist. "Where is it, though?" Laughter, the hearty laughter of a man who didn't know that he should be afraid of his own upcoming demise. "I wonder."

Inside of Edward's mind, the tiny little scientist whose genius was acknowledged by all the masses (but not, apparently, by his non-genius lover) exploded.

 

Later that evening Edward dusted off his hands. After abandoning his dithering, Edward had had a fairly productive afternoon putting down the bones of his outline, ellipses overlaying the circle like orbitals. There was also a design stolen directly from his visions in the gate; a spiraling mandelbrot track that broke the main array into a tiling, fractionated set, fractal and delicate like the curling spine of a seahorse.

He still had one more full day before Michaelmas; the fine detail could be filled in then.

It didn't take long for Scar to set up the canvas shield over his work, and then they left the castle for the night, going to a clearing just outside the entrance where the Ishibalite had raised the tent. No fire was lit; this high on the mountain, any light at night would be suspect. Dinner was therefore cold: cheese and bread and beer.

Scar and Edward ate outside, sitting on rocks and watching the sun set beyond the rind of the earth. Beyond a certain point on the horizon the sun seemed to go down very fast, breaking into rays and then shadow. Taking its light beyond the ocean, to lands half a world away. The moon was almost full and therefore it was already visible to the east, a cheerful white light that was both wan and pure.

"I have a question, Edward," Scar said into the fading purple silence.

"Shoot."

"What did you mean earlier, about making memories to sacrifice?"

Damn. Why couldn't any of Scar's questions be easy? "It seems probable that the gate will take a certain fraction of one's memories. I don't know what that fraction will be, but logically-- the more memories I have, the more I'll be able to keep. So…" Edward took a deep breath. "The more sex we have, the more chances I'll have of holding onto at least one memory of my brother."

"Convenient logic," Scar said, but there was a certain gentleness to his voice that only came out when the topic of Alphonse was addressed, either directly or indirectly.

"You asked." Edward looked down at his feet. "It's not like I only want to have sex for myself, you know."

"Come sit here," Scar said, and when Edward turned to look the man was gesturing to the place on the ground between his legs, where his back would be to the rock Scar was sitting on and his head would be… directly leaning against Scar's groin. That would be a nice place to sit, warm and protected from the wind rising from the northwest. Edward looked, his head tilted and a pang of longing catching him in the throat. He wanted to sit there, to cozy up to Scar by increments and let things happen according to whatever mysterious flowchart the man had in mind to make their sex acts acceptable.

"That sounds good," Edward said, voice a bit harsh and pitched lower than usual. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," Scar said, not turning to look at him, eyes fixed on the retreating sun. "There are other ways I plan on performing my penance… and it seems cruel to deprive not only you, but Alphonse as well."

Edward bit his lip, and then his tongue. He would not even bother to ask about the 'other ways.' Scar's reasoning was almost certainly sophistry, illogical even according to the dictates of faith. But clearly this was a disconnect, a failing that Scar had possessed for a long time. It was easy to forgive, really, because it was evidence of the man's fundamental goodness. Plus… Edward really wanted sex right now; he'd be insane to quibble.

Silently, without further commentary, Edward stood up and shook out his limbs, walking over to where Scar was. For a minute all he did was look at the man, catching his eye in the failing light and lifting his chin challengingly.

"You're… beautiful, Edward Elric."

How should a boy respond to that kind of complement from a man? He still had no idea. A frisson of heat touched his cheeks, and finally, finally, he nodded, swallowing.

The light of the sun set Scar's eyes on fire, making them appear dark red. "Sit," Scar bade, gesturing to the patch of grass at his feet. Taking a deep breath, Edward lowered himself to the ground, slowly adjusting himself so that he was leaning into the warm angle created between Scar's thighs. With a satisfied sigh, Edward leaned into the hard inner bundle of muscles. It wasn't long before Scar began running his fingers over the plaited hair, first smoothing it down over the scalp, and then teasing out the braid, loosening the tie and making the blonde hair hang free.

This was not penance; this was positively vengeance. Edward closed his eyes, not insensible to the fact that Scar's teasing touch was both echo and payback for the way that he'd seduced the man the night before. Scar had promised to tie him up again tonight, but this felt different… no way was the man preparing himself for punishment or self-denial. The skittering touch of Scar's fingers was not hesitant but teasing, touching not only the sensitive places on the top of his head, but gently pressing into the grooves defining the muscles of his neck, drawing latitudinal lines along his body in motions of surveillance, curiosity, desire.

Edward felt so small, and he hugged his legs close to his chest, making himself even smaller.

With his eyes still closed, the sun set at last.

At some point, Scar slid himself down off the rock, lifting Edward into his lap and wrapping his arms around Edward's slight body, kissing the curves of Edward's neck and encouraging the boy to lean back. Somehow this reminded Edward of the first time that Scar had touched him, when the man had invited him into his bed in the monastery. That felt like ages ago, but the pang of remembrance made both the memory fresh and the current sensation new.

"You're mine, you know," Scar whispered into his left ear.

"I know," Edward replied, voice so quiet as to be almost inaudible. "I do."

His breath caught as Scar raised one hand to cup Edward's chin, tilting his head to the side and up, favouring him with a gentle kiss on the lips. Edward opened his eyes. Scar's face was so close, now, which was a little bit intimidating. Beyond the contours of Scar's nose and cheek, the sky's color had deepened to indigo. At the edges of his vision Edward caught the twinkle of fixed stars.

"I want you," Scar whispered. "Very, very much." The hand on Edward's face strayed down his chest, finding and cupping his already-hard cock.

Edward swallowed, again, and Scar's lips curled slightly… a rarely-seen, wicked smile. Scar opened his mouth, and for the second night in a row there was deep kissing. Scar's mouth tasted sweet, like apple… when had he eaten an apple?… but also faintly bitter. The taste was complex, intoxicating… like flowers of antimony. Edward tried to push his tongue forward but Scar's was in the way, invading his mouth and preventing him from reciprocating. Again the man's arms were around his body, crushing him close, making him warm and stifling his ability to move.

The kiss was long and lingering, and completely on Scar's terms. Edward gasped when Scar finally pulled back, blinking and licking his lips. So often was Scar deferential and kind that it was easy to forget how absolutely strong he was. The man didn't need to tie him up at all to get what he wanted… without alchemy, there was no way that Edward could find an advantage now. And really, he didn't want to. Things felt too good this way. Edward clung to Scar's shoulders, his automail fingers pinching the thick flesh underneath the man's shirt.

Scar's desire, when properly activated, was flatteringly complete, his browsing touch firm and possessive. Edward was kissed again and again, and Scar groped everything… his back, the curve of his ass, the junction of limbs to automail, the nape of his neck. It felt particularly good when Scar fingered the inner edge of his left leg, skirting the edge of his balls through the clothes and moving down along the thigh to find the ridge of steel demarcating real from artificial.

"Lie back," Scar said softly, chasing his words with a gentle shove. The autumnal night was becoming cool; the smell of leaves burning from a faraway bonfire wove through the evolving crispness of the air. The sky behind the Milky Way had become dark, and the moon was rising, casting a silver film over the birch trees in a copse at the edge of the clearing.

As soon as he was down, Scar moved sideways, dragging Edward's legs around in an arc, away from the rock. Once he was satisfied that there was enough room, Scar climbed into place over him, grinding his cock against Edward's. To do that he had to forgo kissing, but Scar curled in towards him anyway, pressing his lips onto Edward's forehead, wrapping his arms around the top of the boy's head, leaning his weight on his forearms so that the touch against Edward's face was light.

Some months back, Edward had let slip to Scar that he'd never had sex before all of this; nothing he'd _define_ as sex, anyway. This had seemed to surprise Scar quite a bit, and it eventually had come out…after much hemming and evasion, and with lots of teasing on Edward's part… that Scar had actually had at least a half dozen different partners, all female, back during his days fighting with the Ishibal insurgency. To hear Scar tell it, when he finally did, those had all been rather casual encounters, violent and frenetic yet easily dismissed. Sex between comrades, nothing more.

Since then, Edward had always defined their sex as of a similar quality, but something always tugged at him: an undeniable fact. The way Scar dealt affection and tenderness to him suggested that his feelings for Edward had a subtly different tenor. Protective, and yet strangely deferential… it was different from the casual yet distant courtesy with which Scar dealt with pretty women. Was it because the man wanted to make up for all the sex that Edward had never (really) had? Or was it something else, a deeper impulse?

It was not easy to define, of course… the best Edward could do was that sometimes, Scar's concern felt downright brotherly.

The bulge of Scar's erection was easily felt through his pants, and Edward felt himself get all sweaty with friction and the transmitted effort. Scar wanted to be inside of him; this much was entirely clear. Scar was so solid, and his own body so lithe… for him the combination was heavy and sometimes even difficult to endure. Was Scar going to go through with it? Would the man fuck him, even after he'd so long ago vowed not to?

It felt like begging for it would break the spell. Edward feared that saying anything right now, even the lightest and most innocuous thing, might cause Scar to come to his senses… or, as Edward considered it, descend into his habitual dislogic. So, despite wanting to be fucked so badly that it felt like his very bones were fracturing into shattered desire, Edward kept his lips firmly shut, only allowing himself to making inarticulate noises and moans whenever something felt particularly good.

When Scar slowed his motions and dropped sideways to lie next to Edward in the grass, there was brief moment of absolute aggravation on Edward's part until he felt the man's fingers groping the front of his tight black pants, pulling them off with expert precision. Edward widened his eyes, panting, holding back the beguiling coercive plea he wanted to make… if Scar tried to go down on him without fucking him, _again_, Edward thought he'd have to kill the man out of frustration. Some higher wisdom held him back, however, telling him to chill, to wait. If Scar was going to fuck him, ultimately it would have to be the man's own decision. That's just the way it had to be.

Scar was looking at him, pupils dark and dilated, eyes visible in the waxing moonlight. The man looked hungry, but more than that he appeared irresolute. Even now, something was holding him back, something bigger and more important than his faith: could it possibly be his own feelings? It made Edward shiver to think that Scar could feel strongly about him, could have a kind of partiality for him that approached the level of the man's known attachment to the younger Elric. All along, Edward had remained steady in his theory that, between the two of them, Scar respected and related to Alphonse more. But what if… what if Edward had risen to stand equally with Alphonse in this man's feelings?

That was a frighteningly intense thing to contemplate. Scar had literally been willing to die for Al. Unable to help himself, Edward put one hand down on his own cock, desire catching him out. He did not intend to masturbate, just to… stay exactly where he was, holding in the sensation of pressure and contact his body had come to crave. Scar widened his eyes to see Edward touch himself, and the man's heavy breathing became quicker and more urgent.

Reaching out, Scar took Edward's hand, grip enveloping the boy's smaller fingers. "Only I should touch you there," Scar said, his voice thick and harsh.

Edward bit his lip. That possessive tone suited Scar. He so wanted to tell this man to fuck him, to order him to act. But that probably would not work. Edward made due with communicating his desire with his eyes, staring down obviously at Scar's groin and making a small desiring noise. Scar's own constraints were making him feel helpless… it felt like any false move would make Scar back off for good.

Because Edward was usually such a wordy person, this lack of commentary seemed to put Scar off his game, but instead of making him unsure the man seemed to gather courage and resolve. In response to Edward's glance, Scar slowly began to take off his own pants, uncovering his erect cock without the customary hesitation about revealing his true girth. It seemed strange that a man could be embarrassed for being too large, but Scar usually was. To see that embarrassment muted now was a very encouraging, sexy thing.

When both of them were naked from the waist down, Scar pulled Edward close, taking him for a kiss. This meant that Edward's cock was crushed against Scar's abdomen, and Edward wrapped his automail leg around the upper arch of Scar's pelvis. Kissing and pressing; these were good stop-gap measures, but Scar didn't stop there… with his right arm wrapped around Edward's body, first he touched behind the knees, then up the thigh, and then the rim of the ass.

"Yes…" Edward whispered, unable to hold back affirmation.

Scar's fingers were thick, blunt, with the nails clipped down to a Roman shortness; Edward tensed at first as Scar slowly probed his entrance, tugging at the tightness. The skin down there was dry, and the friction at the edge was not pleasant… but as soon as the finger was inside, the sensation of prickly, burning pain subsided, replaced with an odd feeling of pressure and fullness. While Scar was doing this, attention seemed to divert from the kissing, and slowly the needy motions of their tongues slackened and soon the kissing relaxed into chaste tension, lips pressing and mouths opening but nothing really real occurring… officially, both Scar's and Edward's attention had migrated south.

Edward's cock was throbbing as he thrust blindly against the man's belly, his thrusts constrained by the firm way he was being held and the mounting pressure inside his ass. Scar's touch was not expert but it was curious and confident, and the man poked around until he found a place that made Edward gasp. Once found, Scar corked his finger into place, burrowing at the sensitive spot with insistence and experimental verve.

"Fuck…" Edward spat out, drunk on sensation. "Fucking fuck."

"I can't believe you really want this," Scar whispered, his voice sounding both reverent, and strangely surprised. "But you do, don't you?"

"Yes," Edward said, his reply clipped and unequivocal. "Yes."

This reply earned Edward some intensely-felt words of Ishibal, and another finger up his ass. Which felt so, so good.

Scar rolled over onto his back and Edward used his hands to hold Scar's face firmly, palms over ears and thumbs on cheeks, and he kissed the man in lieu of everything he wanted to say, communicating gratitude for the dissolution of loneliness, communicating desire for the taking of such beauty as the man had to offer. It was easy to thrust against the firmness of Scar's body, to squirm himself to near orgasm, sensations eclipsed only by his body's limitations in processing them. Squeezing his eyes shut, Edward strained to clench all of his muscles and then release them, which slowly helped him to become more relaxed.

"Now?" Scar asked when Edward allowed him to speak, after a particularly intense kiss.

The alchemist nodded mutely, and Scar then removed his fingers to wipe them in the grass, bruising the green stems at the bases and covering his fingers in the cleansing sap of chlorophyll pigments. The night was full of analogue stillness, the kind of profound quiet that could calm the body simply because it was so imperfect. The wind was not strong, but enough to shake the leaves in the birches, a susurration like the glass-breaking whisper of ice-encrusted trees. Rustling underbrush, skittering skies, the distant and mournful call of an owl on the hunt. Under his breastbone, Edward felt his heart flutter, and his whole body ached as if infected.

Scar sat up and in his pivot lowered Edward down carefully against the ground. Underneath the grass, the floor of the hill was stony and uneven and not particularly comfortable, but Edward hardly noticed as Scar leaned over him, crooking his hands into place in the pits of Edward's knees and bending them up and out of the way. Edward was glad his body was so flexible, as pliant as that of a young child… he'd kept himself limber with all of Izumi's exercises, and even the creak and whine of automail couldn't hide his limp-limbed eagerness to comply.

Thumbing his thighs roughly, Scar looked down on him. The man looked ready. Not at peace, exactly, but the earlier wash of irresolution was replaced with sharp determination. The wind, now… the wind was licking Edward's body and reminding him that it was not summer any more, a ripple of chill raising gooseflesh on forearm, shin, and thigh. Scar seemed to sense the way the alchemist's body was prickling into attention, because he nodded solemnly before scooting closer, angling Edward's ass into position and parting his legs smoothly.

"I will proceed slowly," Scar vowed, voice shaking only slightly with the force of his desire. "And I will stop at any moment."

"Don't stop," Edward panted. "Don't…"

Softly, Scar leaned forward. "I don't wish to." The tip of the man's cock bunted against his ass, and Edward gasped to feel the smear of pre-come on his already shivering body. "But say the word, and I will."

"I'll kill you," Edward murmured. "Kill you, kill you…"

"My, my," Scar said sliding his cock along the curve of pale skin. "Ambiguous."

"Fucker," Edward said, raising his voice some. "You know what… fuck!" At that moment, the head of Scar's cock came into moist contact with his anus, and whatever genius retort Edward had planned was lost in a lapse of incoherence. Edward tilted his head back so hard he almost gave himself whiplash, cutting his scalp on a small angled rock buried in the grass. "Fuck…" he whispered, spending his reckless passion with a heart-stopping pause as Scar slowly, slowly pressed past the reflexively tight muscles.

It was time for some eye-closing. Edward bit his lip and forced himself to breathe through his nose. The thing was, this didn't have to hurt, not if he relaxed. He was convinced of it. But just… Scar was so large, and that was a pretty significant mental hurdle to get over. As Edward was wondering how to zen himself into this, Scar released the automail leg, reaching first to stroke Edward's face, and then down to finger along the leading edge of Edward's slightly flagging cock.

"I… I…I want you," Scar whispered, tripping a little over his words. "So much." Edward felt his cock fill and stiffen under the man's burning touch. "Edward."

In reply, Edward thrust his pelvis forward, taking in maybe a millimeter of Scar's girth on his own before the man instinctively responded with enough pressure to slide the cock in past the head and along part of the shaft. Scar was looking down at him as if he was the finest of god's creations, approving and appreciative and something more… as if he was some tangible icon in one to one scale.

Taking Edward's cock firmly in hand, Scar gave it a tight squeeze before pushing himself in further, making needy, almost ugly noises as he pressed on. Scar seemed to be putting most of his weight onto his shins and knees, but still… it was rather impressive that the man could manage this much control of his body without needing to stabilize himself with his hands. Scar's strength was all spine. Placing his hands on either side of his lover's flanks, Edward ran his fingers along the curving processes of the ribs and the soft meat of the belly between chest and hips. Scar moved inside him, pushing in as far as he could before drawing almost all of the way out, and then starting the process all over again; relief, then pressure, then relief, then fucking… It was nice to have a lover who was such an absolutely sexy beast, and even nicer to have one who was so good at making him squirm.

"See?" Edward managed, voice low and hungry. "Empiricism."

Scar smiled then, the judgmental and strained smile of someone older, with enough experience to know that experience could mislead as well as enlighten, but there was fondness in the glance, and in the gestures of his body. His hardness inside of Edward was making for some strange sensations, and the friction at a certain place was making him burn. It would be nice if Scar could just stay put, but that wasn't quite the point now, was it? Edward endured, therefore, each successive thrust. But with Scar's hand on his cock, touching it with the same gentle strokes and consideration the man could give with his tongue, Edward was and stayed hard, and despite the cool wind sweat began to wick from his body.

He even managed a return smile.

Scar was sweating too, skin fragrant with the musk of grass and gravel-dust mixed in with his personal scent. Circumspect and tailored, Scar seemed to be trying to master his desire and put it under chains, but his restraint was fading. This was different from kissing; making love face to face was a less obvious kind of honesty… not so up-close, not so revealing of flaws of form, but certainly naked in what else it exposed in terms of weakness. Edward knew that Scar thought of him as small, but the man never did him the disservice of thinking that equated to frailty. Even as Scar used his fingers to blend flesh into flesh, the strokes as the man fucked him became more clanging and sure. Scar's cock was so large, and large enough that Edward's elasticity was at the absolute tolerance limit; his rectum ached even as he veered into orgasm.

Too much, it was very much too much. Scar gasped when Edward came, thick white semen dripping from his belly and back onto his grasping hand, and instantly he released his hold on the alchemists smaller frame, sticky fingers slamming into the ground next to Edward's ear. For a moment the pace of his thrusts slackened.

"You…" Scar gasped, and the tremor in his voice suggested that he was very close as well. "Need…. you…"

Need articulated was enough to drive Edward into a hollow blush, even as he was coming down from the contact high. The weight of Scar's body was nothing like the weight of his regard, and Edward closed his eyes, trying to just be relaxed enough so that he could take it. He couldn't help it, though… his teeth chattered a little, suddenly feeling the cold fixing to drown his exposed body as he stopped sweating and began to feel the dyskinetic effects of evaporation as well as the acid-calcium twitches of exhaustion deep in the heart of his muscles.

Hair splayed and tickling his face, back itching in irritation as the fabric of his shirt hitched awkwardly against the ground, whole body hiccoughing with each pounding beat of Scar's body, Edward sighed even as he shook, in fulfilled lust. This was good. Even uncomfortable, this was very good.

"Don't stop," Edward murmured, looking up at Scar through eyes hazy with the post-coital drowse of hormones.

"Won't," Scar replied shortly, and the man's eyes closed in turn. In a moment, Edward felt it. When Scar came it was with the rush of repressed ejaculation, and it seemed quite some time-- even though it was probably just a few seconds-- before the man's erection subsided.

Two hands on Edward's chest, Scar rubbed the boy's nipples and then hooked him up by the underarms, lifting him even as he backed out slowly. Feeling buoyant and practically boneless, Edward did nothing other then make a little noise as he was coaxed into the air as Scar lay back, pulling him down just as quickly into an enveloping embrace. Like that, the wind was cut off, his body warmed, as Scar lazily ran his hands up and down his body, touching him carelessly and possessively.

At some point, Scar started to whisper words to him in the language of Ishibal. His voice was soothing, soothing, and the way the man touched his skin was like the kiss of a July wind off the sea.

Because he did not understand, soon Edward drifted off into sleep.


	11. Chapter 11

And Spain go under and the shore  
Of Africa the gilded sand  
And evening vanish and no more  
The long pale light across that land

Nor now the long light on the sea:  
And here face downward in the sun  
To feel how swift how secretly  
The shadow of the night comes on…

Archibald MacLeish _You, Andrew Marvell_

 

Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. The three ancient magi who paid tribute to the Christ child, and who, in exchange, learned the secret of the gates of resurrection, and the gates of death.

Allegedly.

After the end of his long day of sketching, Edward stood up, wiping sweat from his forehead with a careless, backhanded motion. He was dirty and exhausted, but felt oddly triumphant as he looked at the early evening sky. He had fought the good fight, and was about to finish the race; there was no way that Alphonse could outpace him now, no way that Alphonse could cheat him into paying a price that he never should be asked to pay.

…well, unless through some horrendous cosmic coincidence, Alphonse was simultaneously putting the finishing touches on a similarly work-intensive array. Edward smiled, ignoring the nausea such a thought invariably inspired. Coincidence was possible, of course, but he knew the odds were infinitesimal. He might as well worry about being slain by an errant lightning-filled cloud.

"Done?" Scar called out, from where he was sitting on a crumbling portion of the castle wall.

"Yeah… finally. Come look."

Scar joined him in a moment, offering a canteen of water as he moved to stand next to Edward. Feeling he deserved it, Edward finished off the last of it, drinking down the metallic-tasting, lukewarm water as if it were refreshing spring water delved from some legendary glacial source and newly delivered to his lips. He drank noisily and messily, letting water dribble down his chin as he gulped.

"Apparently the circle was a non-starter," Scar said, tone bland, gaze obvious. "You erased it?"

"No," Edward answered, giving Scar a wary look. "It's still there. Just… obscured."

"Really?" Scar squinted. "You're sure?"

"It is," Edward insisted. "It's necessary, after all."

"It's there, but not," Scar mused. "I guess that's one way to answer the whole 'where is it' debate."

Edward closed his eyes, took a deep breath. That was the whole point. Dare he try to explain the whole theory of grounding and cycling energy? Or the subtle importance of paradox? Again? "You know, you need to get this too. If your mind is wandering off on stupid shit, we'll end up reincarnated as frogs or something."

Scar turned a bit to give him a sideways glance. "Don't worry, I get it." Filling his lungs to capacity by taking a deep, deep breath, Scar forced a sigh. "I understand well."

"Good," Edward said, tossing the canteen off to the side and taking Scar's hand, tugging the man forward. "Let's do a walkabout. I need to check for errors."

"It's very impressive," Scar admitted, his gaze becoming analytical as he joined Edward in evaluating the array. "Quite different from anything I've ever seen before."

"That's just because you've never looked at astronomy textbooks, that's all." Edward said, with a little offhand shrug, but he couldn't hide the fact that he sounded a bit flattered. It didn't matter that Scar's experience with arrays was not anything that could be construed as 'extensive'… this _was_ a very different kind of array, with layers of complication far beyond even the resurrection array he'd drawn with blood on his own body, the last time he'd performed alchemy in his own world. Edward was very proud. "It took me ages just to calculate the correct positions."

Scar intertwined his fingers with Edward's own, and squeezed. "I know." Saying nothing further, he turned with Edward to look silently at what his lover had wrought, walking slowly with the smaller boy as they did a full 360-degree surveillance.

At their feet was a complex scaling design, bounded on the outer extremity with a twisted serpent biting its own tail; an ouroboros twisted in moebius fashion. Cutting the figure acutely were the stylized ellipses, with one bold ecliptic defining an artificial horizon. Within its bounds was a scattering of precisely placed points. These were the stars of the sky, fixed and named in Hebrew according to a scheme that defined each visible star below a certain magnitude as one of the descendants of Abraham.

The stars were mapped to create an exact mirror of the sky as it would exist at sunset that night above this castle in Oberkirch, joined into the principle constellations of fall: Cassiopeia and Lacerta, Pegasus and Pisces. Andromeda. Aries. Grus. Scattered seemingly at random among these were the planets, the moon: wandering stars. From the head of the serpent was the origin of the mandelbrot set, waves and waves of chaos curling and circling throughout the design according to a completely separate calculation.

Around the ecliptic at twelve points were the ancient symbols of the zodiac; it was at the position of Virgo that Edward had written, in the bold letters of his home language of Amestris, the words "Edward Elric." His name; positioned at the precise cusp in time, and place, bounded by the gates of death.

Scattered over all was a fine red dust.

"What do you think?" Scar asked finally, voice quiet, when they reached the place where they started. "Is it ready?"

Eye darting here and there, Edward made some quick final assessments, and after a moment or two longer, he nodded. "Almost. There's just the one last thing."

"Mmm," Scar said. Edward knew that the man didn't really have to ask what that one thing was. Scar held close to his own name as if it were tabooed, and Edward knew that to give it up to him now, even in writing, would hold a cost. It was not surprising that Scar felt hesitant… Edward gave the man's hand a little reassuring squeeze.

"I can't read your language," Edward said softly, reminding him. "And I won't remember it anyway. It's okay."

"Perhaps," Scar said, letting go of Edward's hand, holding his own out. "Chalk?"

It took every ounce of self-control Edward possessed to refrain from warning Scar against spoiling his drawings as he handed over the stubbed white chalk, but he did nothing to repress the wince as Scar turned around and began picking his way through the design. Fortunately, Scar was not clumsy, and managed to find the spot with Edward's name without incident, careful not to disturb the shadow figures in red phosphorus or the bolder lines drawn in white.

Watching anxiously, Edward at first did not process Scar's next action; pocketing the chalk, Scar pulled a pocketknife out of his pants, and with a quick motion almost too fast to see, the man cut himself deeply along the fleshy part at the base of his right thumb, dripping blood into the array.

Dripping… blood…

This was the kind of thing that made Edward wish that life worked in slow-motion. The array flashed briefly, a crackle of green light, and he felt his eyes widen and his body tense in reflex horror, even before his mind could process what Scar was doing. The nausea that he'd felt only briefly before returned, intense and constant. Rage and hatred bubbled up in him like a cauldron, wiping any and all affection he had ever dared to feel for the man in one, single, horrible moment of realization.

What was this? What the fuck was _this_? "What are you….?" Edward began, voice shaking, and he took a step forward.

Scar looked up at him, voice low. "That's dangerous," he said, even as he held his wounded hand close to his chest. "Don't come any closer." Blood seeped over the man's white shirt and trickled down his left hand, and it was red, too red, impossibly red. Scar met his gaze and stared at him warningly, a look so hard that it returned Edward to himself… the boy stood stark still, snapping suddenly into focus, instantly apprehending one thing: Scar, his lover, had betrayed him.

"You…" Edward said, enmity ringing in his voice, which was deceptively calm. No matter what Scar thought he was doing, no matter how he thought he might be helping, with this one action he had, quite probably, ruined everything. He hoped to fuck it was a whim; he would kill the man if it was a whim. But if it were something else… something premeditated, some opaque plotting or theory of which he had no knowledge… he would do more than kill him. He would find a way to shred his lover's soul into a million tiny bits, so that the very universe itself would forget that he existed. If Scar thought he could get away with delaying his quest by one day, let alone months or even years… if he thought he could keep Edward from Alphonse, out of jealousy or ignorance or even, fuck, out of love… the man would pay. He would pay so hard and so much that no one living or dead could do anything but tremble at his fate. "How dare you?"

Scar was looking at him so steadily, so calmly and with such self-assurance that Edward bit his lip in absolute rage. "Penance," Scar said at last. "It was you who reminded me of its true cost, and worth."

When…?

_ You are very difficult… And maybe a little unfair._

Edward remembered a kiss on his forehead, and almost involuntarily reached up to touch himself there. "You… you don't know anything," Edward said, cold and furious, clenching his hand into a fist once he saw where he was moving it, and holding it firmly at his side. "I don't care what…and why you think that…" He stopped, paused. "It doesn't matter. You are an idiot, and a fool." Blood on his lips. "And I hope you go to hell."

At this Scar looked away, but not with shame. Resolution. Edward shook more, shook so hard he teeth were clattering. Looking down, Scar dipped his left index finger into the pulpy gash of his hand, and then the man leaned forward, drawing a stroke of blood… directly over Edward Elric's name. "Remember," Scar said quietly. "I care for your brother too."

What was he… what did he…? Edward felt his lips curl and his eyes water from the rising bile. A touch on the cheek, a hand on his body… "You're ruining everything," Edward said, hard tones still holding even through he felt as if his body would crack under the restraint. "You know nothing, you have no idea…"

"The truth," Scar said, cutting him off, even as he laid down another stroke of blood, making longer the line he had just drawn. "I saw it, when I died. Ishibala showed me."

When he died…. Edward was about to sneer something cruel, something negating, something damning… when something caught him up short. The truth… the Truth…. that was something of the gate. Alchemy.

But there was no truth that Edward knew of that would make Scar's actions make sense, none. "Go on," Edward said grudgingly. He might still have to kill Scar… kill his lover… for Alphonse's sake. It did not matter if it were through accident, or malice aforethought… if Scar prevented him from seeing his brother again, the man would have to die. But for the sake of the Truth… the truth which had hands, which had taken his brother's body for him, and which was his sworn enemy… he'd at least listen.

"You think there are seven sins. But there are many more than that," Scar said, continuing the slow, painstaking process of writing lines with his own blood. "Despair, fear. Ignorance." The man was kneeling carefully, so so careful not to disturb the surrounding lines of chalk. "Isolation."

"Isolation is not…."

"Of course it is," Scar said, his voice tight… with pain, or something else. "It is more than cause of sin, or effect of sin. It _is_ sin. Because… because it is wrong to isolate one's self from the common fate of man."

"What do you mean?" Edward felt he could not possibly hate the man more than he did at this moment, for talking religious and philosophical nonsense while so much, so very damn much, was at stake. Scar's tongue in his mouth, the man's mouth on his body… Edward's tone of voice transmitted utter scorn, and his body felt as cold as the dark side of an occulted moon.

"Ishibala told me that alchemy is no more wicked than the wind, or the sky… that my people were mistaken, and had sinned grievously against her for thinking so. The holocaust of my people was the price we paid for that ignorance."

If so much of his own life wasn't personally at stake right now, Edward would give voice to his scorn at that idea, pointing out that murder was worse than hatred, and that this sins of his own people were far more disgusting and wrong, no matter how nicely parsed. But he would not give Scar that satisfaction… he would not give him anything. The man would have to dig his own grave, all by himself. "Yes," Edward said at last, eyes hooded, tone uncaring. It hurt him, now, to remember the way that he'd exalted in the man's touch, hungered for his body. "Whatever you say."

Surprisingly, Scar smiled, but his smile was filled with bitterness. "No, I do not believe my people deserved to die for that sin. And obviously, I cannot forgive what was done to them, no matter what the justification. But… judgment for one is judgment for all." The man paused, exhaling, and his voice carried the strain of much hidden, pent-up emotion. "There is no such thing as a salvation that picks and chooses… no such thing as a redeeming grace that discriminates one from another." Scar continued to write, his blood drying dark on the stone. "Ishibala refused to damn me, despite my many sins, because the damnation of one is the rejection of all."

"I'm not seeing how this correlates." Edward coughed, and then hugged his arms tight to his body. "Get to the point."

"The problem with the way you practice alchemy is that you forsake your humanity… here, by giving up a piece of your memory, and there… back in our world… by shedding a piece of your soul." Scar finished with the first letters of whatever word he was writing down. "This is not right."

"I never gave up my soul."

"No? Then why did you come to need Alphonse so much? Was it not because he reminded you of the things you'd left behind?" Scar hissed a bit as he dug deep into his wound. "It occurred to me, when you told me of what you'd need to give up in order to return to him, that you would make yourself more dependent on him than ever… and that, in turn, your dependence would invite Alphonse to make an even graver sacrifice on your behalf. A cycle of loss. Tragic."

"I wouldn't let him," Edward said, a tear coming to his eye. Scar should not be able to hit so close to home. It hurt too much, and was unfair, terribly unfair. He did not want to be seen this nakedly, did not want to be judged by this man who found it so easy to betray him. And for what? For why? It made no sense.

"Your plan, to return with me, was always unrealistic," Scar said, and for the first time his calm tone broke a little, even as he continued to write.

"… and so, what? You're going to… what?" Edward looked down, watching as Scar worked to cover Edward's name with something else, some other writing. It hurt too much. How could the man do this to him? "Go on your own?"

"I am sorry you think so little of me," Scar said, his voice so soft that Edward could barely hear it. "No, that's not it."

"Oh?"

"I don't intend to go… at all."

What? Why destroy the array then… what… "Then… what the fuck are you doing? What the crazy fuck hell do you think you are going to do?"

"I will pay your price with my name, and my memories." The man stood up. The writing was done… a short word, jagged with blood, impossible to make out from this angle. "It will work."

Edward blinked.

_ Just know that… I did what I felt that I had to do. I am willing to pay the price._

"Stupid," he said. "You have no idea…"

"It will work," Scar repeated. Scar stepped forward, right up to the edge of the array, where Edward was standing. "I will ransom you. This is my penance. This is the truth I learned."

"I… I don't understand…" Edward said, looking up, his voice barely above a whisper. The anger Scar had inspired was still there, still fresh and insistent, but now it was poisoned with complicating factors, things that made him feel far too unsure. Just last night, he was holding and being held by this man, enjoying sex with him. The memory of that touch… he had resolved to sacrifice it. It was right, and just, that this was the price he'd have to pay.

"I don't want to isolate myself from humanity any more," Scar said. "I want you… and Alphonse… to be free."

He wanted… Edward had spent so long, getting used to the idea that he'd have to return to Alphonse without knowing him, that he'd have to greet his brother as a stranger. And now Scar was offering… would it work? Edward shook his head. He didn't want it to work, not at the price quoted. He didn't want Scar to do this, didn't want to accept such a gift at the expense of the annihilation of all that Scar was. It made him still so angry that the man would do this, but the anger flickered and shuddered like a fire deprived of oxygen. Edward struggled to hold onto his outrage, not sure if he wanted to fan it back into life. "No," Edward whispered. "No."

"It's too late," Scar said, his eyes filled with the very loneliness he decried as sin. Hypocrisy… or merely weakness? "There is no time to draw another."

_ You and your brother, you are in it together. Do not worry about what price might be extracted from him, because he is willing to pay that price too. You… cheapen… yourself, and him, to wish it to be otherwise._

"How did you feel," Edward asked, "when your brother gave you his arm?"

"Guilty," Scar answered, with no hesitation, almost as if he expected the question. "But the guilt is irrelevant. Because that was a choice my brother made without me, a long time ago, so that I could live. I made this decision without you, and if that makes you feel guilty… I don't care." The man looked down, and away. "At least you will be alive. You will be… you."

"You're so… we were going to do this _together_. Why won't you…?"

"You never should have asked for so much," Scar said, reaching out of the circle, wiping blood on Edward's cheek as he cupped it with his uninjured hand. "Nor should you have been willing to return to Alphonse with so little."

"Not right," Edward whispered, shaking his head. "It's not…"

"You know nothing of justice," Scar said, shaking his head. "And less of mercy."

Scar reached out with his maimed hand, taking Edward's good left hand in his own, turning it over and revealing a palm already sticky and reeking of iron. Because Scar's hand was now cupping his, he could feel the way the other man shook, feel the weakness that came from his self-inflicted injury. Like this, now, it was all too real, and suddenly Edward realized that it could work… that Scar's plan of replacing Edward's name with his own was not foolish, that it would work flawlessly. The truth of this was stunning, and made Edward want to retch. How possibly could Scar be willing to sacrifice so much, on his behalf?

"Let me do this for you," Scar said softly. "There is no home for me now, and the people I loved best are all dead. Don't you think it is time for me to join them… just as it is time for you to return to your brother?"

"It's wrong," Edward said, but he did not stop Scar as the man pulled out his small pocketknife and, with an almost tender motion, drew it over the palm of his hand, a shallow cut that soon became deep. It stung.

"I have one wish," Scar admitted, even as he turned over his hand, and grasped Edward's in a gesture that had ancient meaning. Their blood mingled, and drops of it fell to the ground inside the array, thus bringing down the invisible barrier that Scar's blood had initially created. Once again, the array crackled with energy, activated by the life being poured into it. "It is very selfish."

Scar drew him into the magical circle-that-was-not-a-circle. "What's that?" Edward asked, stepping to stand next to this man who had been (and for the moment, still was) his lover.

"I want you to remember that I existed," Scar said. "I want you to go back to your home and remember the time that you spent with me here."

That much was painful to contemplate. But it was not an unfair thing to ask. "I should have guessed," Edward said, tone wondering and resentful and a little bit rueful, with flashes yet of an unquenchable anger. His eyes moved to the letters of Scar's name. It was in the Ishibalan language, which he could not read. "I totally should have guessed you'd do something crazy like this."

"True," Scar said, and he used a finger on Edward's chin to divert attention away from the blood writing and onto his face. The man began to smile, a slow blooming smile that was practically childlike in its guilelessness. "I was most worried that you might."

Why… ? Well, fuck. The sex should have been the tip off. On-again and off-again zealots only _appeared_ to be illogically capricious, it seemed. "I don't think you'll die, you know." Edward said with an accusing frown. "You'll live, and have no memories, and die of starvation or something." His hand throbbing, he stepped a little closer, pressing his face into the lower part of Scar's chest, smelling the clean, woodsy scent that had become so familiar. "Probably, you'll suffer, quite a bit. That's just not right. It's not… fair."

Scar continued to smile down at him, not daunted by Edward's logic, or doomsday scenario. ""I told Father Ernesto everything, you know." Edward wrenched his head up to gave him a warning glare, outraged and embarrassed, and Scar corrected himself. "_Almost_ everything. I will be rescued if somehow I survive this."

He'd told Father Ernesto…? Was nothing sacred? "I… I don't understand you at all," Edward whispered, holding onto Scar tight, eyes turning to the name on the ground covering his own. As long as there was light in the sky, he would look at it, and try to remember the design even if he could not translate it into sound. Was it possible that he could keep track of something like that? Probably not, and it suddenly seemed very important. "Give me your knife," Edward commanded, as calmly as he could.

"What for?" Scar began, but all Edward did was raise an eyebrow. Like Scar had any right to question him after being so outrageous; it was time to take advantage of his slight moral edge. Slowly, with visible transition of the man's smile into a look of perplexed concern, Scar handed over the pocketknife. Edward took it with his automail hand.

"I'm going to cut myself now," Edward said, as he began raising a thin welt on the inside of his forearm that soon began to trickle tiny drops of blood. His cuts were crude and quick, in a few moments he had replicated all of the major lines of Scar's name. "There," he said, looking up challengingly when done. "Your name." If Scar was going to give it to him, well… the least he could do would be to take it.

"I see," Scar said, and the smile was almost gone, replaced with a look far more wavering and unsure. "I don't think you needed to do that."

"You want me to remember you, right?" Edward said, voice hard and challenging.

"Yes… but…" Scar floundered for a moment, trying to find an appropriate objection.

Edward shook his head, unable to sort out his feelings. Gratitude mixed with frustration, and anger… so much anger, because there just was no time. Around them, the phosphorus dust he'd scattered over the array even now was beginning to rise. Edward would be parting from this universe soon. Parting… alone. He wanted his memories, of course, he wanted them as much as he wanted to breathe… but (and this was only surprising because he hadn't really spelled it out for himself) he also wanted to see Scar again. He thought they'd have time together yet, time to get to know each other all over again. Maybe they would never be lovers after this, but he'd hoped that they'd at least relearn to be friends.

Alphonse would have helped them both, surely. Didn't Scar know that?

"Enough," Edward said, pulling Scar down for a quick kiss, rushed and yet heartsick because he wanted it to last longer. Scar put his hands on Edward's neck, and Edward could smell the blood. Scar kissed him back: a proud kiss, a man's kiss. In a moment they parted. Edward looked up, and he felt his face twist into an unfamiliar expression, his whole body clench with something like anticipatory grief.

That was that. Whatever would happen next, this chapter of both of their lives was over.

Edward considered quickly the matter of last minute revisions. He now stood within the boundary of his circle, and with the spilling of blood, the ritual had already technically begun. Summoning the appropriate aspect of consciousness was not difficult for someone of his seasoned abilities; even in another world, alchemy under the rubric of magic involved rites of the mind for which he had always been preternaturally gifted. In a way, having Scar act as sacrifice instead of agent would make things easier… Scar's state of mind now became a matter of almost trivial inconsequence. Taking a deep breath, Edward pushed gently on Scar's chest. "Let's begin," he said.

"As long as you know," Scar replied softly. "This is primarily for you."

A tear rolled down his cheek before he even realized his eyes had become wet. For him, more than for Alphonse… that was the implication, of course. Edward nodded. "I get it."

The sunset was fading in the west, twilight rolling in and over them with all the power of night. The red dust rising was beginning to glow white, taking on the light of burning flames, coalescing into small points like stars. For alchemy, this was hardly an extraordinary effect, but having been divorced so long from any whisper of power, to stand in the center of a miniature replica of the universe was an incredible thing.

The greater universe, Edward could make no claims on. But within the bounds of his magic the former Fullmetal Alchemist had devised a lesser universe which he could, hopefully, manipulate at his whim.

According to some schools of religious and philosophical thought, travel between universes was simply a matter of transferring consciousness. And for most people, perhaps this was true. But between this world and his own, one Edward had already died… killed in the exploding fire of a fallen zeppelin. Edward had already transferred his body whole to this world, as a side effect of his resurrection array for Alphonse. Unless he wanted to drag someone from his home world to exchange places with him, there would be no transferring back.

To return, Edward would have to unmake his body. And somehow, through the magnitude of his sacrifice and the force of his will, he was to remake his body on the other side. For this to work he would need to invoke the hidden powers of the gate, those hungry shadow creatures that cared for nothing except an attractive trade.

Setting aside his anger, and his loneliness, his despair and his fears, Edward dropped his arms to his sides. He was ready.

Before him, Scar stood like a revenant, pale in the fading light of dusk. Edward found it hard to stifle his pity for the man, and harder to smother his affection. The anger was still there, of course, and probably always would be… but Scar was giving him a remarkable gift. It was something worth loving the man for.

Great powers! Only in overwrought Sir Henry Rider Haggard novels did magic come accompanied by long speeches of droning, deathless prose. One reason so much of this world's magic failed, in fact, was that most people were unable to hold the appropriate levels of concentration while reciting pages of interminable incantations. Without oaths to Osiris, or curses from Isis, or conversations with Sekhet the cat-headed, or any bullying of Set, Edward raised his hands. Only one word was necessary, really, and that was something he could speak in the silence of his own mind.

_Now._

The phosphorus light surrounding them was unnatural, with a faint tinge of green. It was the color of fireflies, or plankton stirred in some dark warm southern ocean. Although his place in the actual universe was an insignificant one, Edward felt important. He was Alphonse Elric's brother, He was Tricia Elric's son. These facts had meaning, and his intention was clear.

_I want to go home._

Beyond the array was a world where crickets chirped, where bats darted, where humans lived and died. It was not his world. The stars in the sky were not his stars.

_Take me._

The giving powers of the universe were always, always hungry.

As taught by the texts of the Kabbalah, Edward knew some important things. For instance, from the Bible he knew that the son that YHVH had asked Abraham to sacrifice had been a grown man at the time of his fathers testing; that Isaac had submitted willingly to the binding, agreeing to his own death as the price of his father's obedience. Just as Scar was willing to pay the price from him, Edward was willing to submit to his own destruction. This did not make him more calm, however, when the light surrounding him coalesced into a single roused entity.

One last flicker of a glance towards Scar. The man stood still and straight as the shadows gathered around him, and even though he looked brave, he also looked… very lonely. Edward felt his body stutter, his heart race, and he looked down, and away.

_ I thought that Ishbala might lead you here._

Scar had known, known all along that things would end this way, given visions of the truth of his own future in much the way that Edward had been shown glimpses of the future of all humanity. But knowing how it would end, only Scar himself could choose how he got there. Edward closed his eyes. Perhaps it could be said that the man had loved him for a time, and in his own fashion.

Perhaps it had even been love, for a time.

Alright. The light was him, in negative space. The gate was himself, in the hole he'd create by leaving this universe. All he had to do, really, was step inside.

 

.fin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it. The final chapter. I worked very hard on this story, from January until April of 2005. This is the result of my four months of lingering concentration, and I really hope that a little bit of the intensity of my original inspiration has remained uncorrupted by the inevitable diminishing that comes to putting an idea into words.
> 
> I don't think I can explain why I love this pairing. The story itself is the explanation, and defense, I guess. But I wish to thank every one of you who gave this oddball story a chance. It means very much to me.
> 
> My particular thanks at this time must go to Hinotori, who served as a cultural beta (who helped me to confirm that the German setting was done properly), and of course to Anax, who is my general over-all beta reader, and best friend. His careful reading and encouragement have helped this story tremendously. I can say, quite honestly, that without his support I probably never could have written this at all.


End file.
